Cook book addicts !!

Oh yes,I too have the dairy book of home cooking ...great little recipes in it...haven't opened it up in a while....

I used to have the Dairy book of home cooking until DD borrowed it. I have several by the Hairy Bikers, Madhur Jeffrey, but my go to book is the Cumbria WI book. It's very battered now, as I've had it since we were married.

My mum bought me the Dairy Book of Home Cooking from the milkman when we got married in 1969. I no longer have it. However, we have stacks of cook books 99% of which we never use - Jamie, Delia, Hairy Bikers, Madhur Jaffrey, Rick Stein, that chef with the spikey hair whose name I can't recall, as well as many others picked up over the years, Italian French, Chinese, English......

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I have quite a few cookery books. One of my oldest ones is 'Vogue's Cookery Book' which was a collection of recipes that appeared in the magazine between the two world wars. According to the introduction "It sets a standard of cooking - the Vogue standard - which is outside the limitations of time"
My Dairy Book of Home Cooking is now a family treasure - has been passed onto my DD who has promised to pass it on!

Yes! I love them. I also tear out the recipes from Good Housekeeping and file them in months. They go back to the early 1980s. I use them constantly so they aren't a waste of space.

Anyone tried Jamie's 5 ingredients book? I like that idea..

I've got his 30 minute book and use that. It is probably worth trying some recipies he's posted on line before you buy.

Anyone got the 1970s little cheese recipie book that also came from the milkman ( I think). The recipe for cheese soufflé was so easy and very impressive!
Also OXO did a spiral meat cookery book. These two were my go to books, when I was newly married.

Before I was married I collected Super cook - a magazine collection with binders - 8 volumes in hotel. I've still got it but rarely use it. I like the 3 Hairy Dieters books which I have and also use recipes from magazines.

I'm just off to get Jamie's 5 ingredients book. I also find him a bit irritating, but he's a nice lad with very good intentions, so I will forgive him for saying 'incredible flavour' ten times per minute!
I have dozens of cook books, and decided not to buy more because of the easy availability of recipes online. However, as I print them all out and keep them, my neat shelves of.books were being replaced by tatty loose-leaf binders, so it's back to books for me.

When I left home at 16 my mum gave me the good housekeeping cook book which became my bible for 40 years. I still refer to it for basics . I collected a number of cook books over the years but now only use three yottam ottolenghi books. The meal prep is usually very lengthy and the kitchen needs cleaning after I've finished and the washing up is horrendous. But the food is divine.

DD1 likes Nigella so I've bought tickets for an appearance she's doing near us at the end of Oct. Your ticket gets you £10 off the book so I thought it would be a nice surprise for her.

The book has been panned by the critics.......Oh dear.

i've got the dairy cookbook too - bought it from the milkman so many years ago. it's very well used and has other recipes tucked into it. it lives in the kitchen where it's handy to look at.
i've also got two newer versions which i bought from amazon - they live on the cook book shelves in the dining room with books by nigella, james martin, the hairy bikers and many others including the readers digest book arranged month by month and several more.
other cook books are on another shelf halfway up the stairs.
you can definately say i'm a cook book addict!

Jamie Oliver’s five ingredients plus his superfoods, anything by Hugh Fernley whittingstall all real food plus Delicious Ella

I too have the early Marguerite Patten, Mary Berry and Oxo spiral books. I also have some by Delia, Nigella, Jamie, Paul Hollywood, Nadiya and many more. However, my favourites are the Australian Women's Weekly Cook Books. They are cheap and the titles are endless, but I prefer the baking ones, which are packed with recipes, each one with a photo, which is important to me.
Women's Weekly Cook Books

I tend to google recipes now although I don't do that much cooking nowadays.

I've just won a Lorraine Pascall cookbook which I am waiting for and her cooking seems to be quite simple so hopefully there will be something in that to try.

Jaycee5, I can recommend Lorraine Pascale's trifle! I have a couple of her books, and yes they are foolproof recipes.

Shysal Thanks. Foolproof is what I need now.

I love cookbooks, especially Nigel Slater. I have pre-ordered his 'Christmas Chronicles', which is out soon.

My most treasured cookery book was given to me by my parents when I was ten in 1965. It's a Good Housekeeping Publication called 'Cooking is Fun'. It's so dog eared now but I still refer to it for basic recipes. Vintage in the true sense.

I had a good clear-out when DS came to stay a couple of weeks ago. Cook books were victims of the purge because, thinking about it, if I want to find a recipe, I now tend to find it on the internet. But I've kept Delia and several veggie cook books. I couldn't give up my 50-year-old Mrs Beeton's Cookery and Household Management, if only for the comedy value of how to be the perfect housewife in the middle of last century. Not that I ever was that person!

As well as 101 cook books ! I also cut recipes out of magazines and newspapers too. They then get put in a wicker basket in the kitchen. When too many are in there, I start going thro them again and throwing some away. Now am fully retired I hope to start actually using some of them ! It's just that pleasure we all get from creating something healthy but delicious that our families all love.

I still use my Marguerite Patten book too - so glad to know I'm not the only one! I do love Delia. Would highly recommend her parmesan parnips - always a favourite in my family. Could not live without Mary Berry or Nigella either. I have hundreds of cookery books, and just love them all! Always a great treat to be given a new one too. I cannot resist recipes fro magazines too - have a huge folder of them. So glad to know there are like minded people out there..... enjoy your weekend cooking everyone!

Favourites are Nigella; Nigel Slater [I love his manner on TV - and his kitchen!]; a Stork cookbook [for basics I was given at school aged 14!!!]; and a miscellaneous selection which includes gluten free; bread making; juicing; muffins, gut sensitive recipes......

I went into a bookshop recently and was just overwhelmed by the number of cookery books on sale. They seemed to overtake everything else. I like trying new things but some of the ingredients I've never heard of!!1

I too am a cookbook addict though I rarely seem to have time to look at them. I also have piles of recipes I have cut out or printed off over the years.

DH commented in front of a friend that I had so many recipes that I'd be dead before I could cook them them all.

She told him in no uncertain terms that cookbooks were for looking at, not just for cooking!

Long live food porn!

I often get myself to sleep by playing 'Desert Island Cookery Books' with myself - I've never stayed awake long enough to announce a winner! But there are several contenders. I do like the Readers Digest Cookery Year which really is encyclopaedic. I LOVE Simon Hopkinson's books and really enjoyed him on TV. I've got a lot of time for the usual suspects - Delia, Mary B, Nigel S, Elizabeth D and now Nadiya is coming up on the rails. The Barefoot Contessa, Ina Garten is wonderful. But on my desert island, for convenience and accessibility I think I'd choose 'Perfect' and 'Perfect Two' by Felicity Cloake, the Guardian food writer. She analyses classic recipes and compares and contrasts how well-known chefs deal with them. Then, her research done, she comes up with her 'perfect' version of the dish. I find her approach fool-proof - and she does all the hard work! Result.