Favourite Recipe Books.

These are two of the most used cook books on my shelf.

Thank you, Paddyanne. What I wish for myself is what I wish for everyone - a return to normality, please. ?

I have many cook books. The older ones are best. The one I remember most- still have it- is Delia’s How To Cheat At Cooking. Has anyone else got it.

I still use my set of Cordon Bleu magazines I bought in the 60s and 70s. I like the weekly menus printed on the back. they are falling apart and have lost some issues when borrowers haven't returned them. I have loads of other books and Delia, Mary Berry and Nigella are my favourites.

It’s been lovely seeing all the cookery books mentioned and how they become old friends, especially the Dairy Diary books delivered by the milkman in the 1980s.

I have dozens of loved recipe books, collected over many years, but still turn to my Stork Cookery book (dating back to school Domestic Science lessons in early 1960s) for fail safe timings on turkey roasting and Christmas cakes!

Otherwise, love the ever reliable Delia, Nigella and Mary Berry but find BBC Food website is worth a look for ideas.

Delia , yes, but remember the Two Fat Ladies? Love them, and Michel Roux jr. I am pleased someone else has the Readers Digest Cookery Year, my first copy fell to bits, so had to get another one, from the Charity Shop!! oh, and Katie Stewart, and, and, and!!!

When I got married, I learned to cook with Good Housekeeping, Khalid Aziz's Indian Cooking, Madhur Jaffrey's An Invitation to Indian Cookery and something by Marguerite Patten - I have forgotten the title, but it was very useful. Good Housekeeping and Madhur's book, which was a paperback, eventually fell to bits. I replaced them with modern versions, which weren't so good.

I have masses of cookery books but I must admit to browsing many of the recipes rather than cooking them. My most used books are by Nigella. On the whole, her recipes work, which isn't true of all writers. Tessa Kiros is an example. She writes beautiful cookery books, like Falling Cloudberries, but some of her recipes just don't seem to work. Nigel Slater, on the other hand, is usually reliable and so is Jamie Oliver.

However, I follow Delia's instructions every year when cooking the Christmas turkey.

I have many of the ones already mentioned, plus other favourites The Archers cookbook, Betty's Cookery School featuring recipes from the famous cafes in Harrogate and York, a book of potato recipes, the Family Book of Dairy recipes bought from the milkman years ago and Jackie Passmore's Asian Cookery, although she's Australian these are very authentic recipes from all around Asia. A Table in Provence plus many others. I did get rid of a lot but couldn't bear to part with these and others. The ones I use most are the traditional British recipes though, like Betty's, just gorgeous.
Just remembered a well used one from the 70s A Paupers Cookbook by Jocasta Innes. Haven't got it now but it was very useful when I was a single mother of two hungry children.
And any if Jocelyn Dimbleby's.
Too many?

Delia Smith's Complete Cookery Course for me too, and also the BeRo book, which was also used by my Mum and Grandma as I was growing up. Got my own copy as soon as I was married.

I have a whole stack of Rose Elliott vegetarian cook books. I love her books. My guilty secret is the internet. So easy to ask what can I do combing this vegetable with that and a few potatoes and the internet comes up trumps, but Rose Elliott is my go to as far as cook books are concerned.

Yes, definitely Delia and Mary Berry. They are ‘cooks’ not ‘chefs’ so their recipes are so easy to follow, and usually foolproof. Jamie Oliver uses too many chillis, and the Hairy Bikers use so many bowls and spoons.

I'm a great fan of BE-RO Home Recipes, the wonderful Margeurite Patten cookery books and also 'A Table in Venice' by Sky McAlpine.

I love my Complete Vegetarian Cookbook by Rose Elliot 1987 and I also use River Cottage Veg every day by Hugh Fearnley whittingstall. We seldom eat meat these days and I don’t miss it.

I replaced my favourite Sarah Brown vegetarian cook book bought in 1976 as it had fallen apart and much was missing. I found it for a penny on Amazon. I can now make my favourite Christmas dinner meal again.

My mother was an excellent gardener but hated cooking. I am myself now considered a reasonably good home cook - but owe this firstly to a Marguerite Patten recipe book in 1971 which I discovered in the kitchen of a shared house - and then to Delia in the 80's.(They both said non-frightening things along the level of 'turn the oven on first.'!)

But I must also give credit to Good Housekeeping, Margaret Costa, Madhur Jaffrey, The Soup Bible, the freebie Co-op supermarket recipes - and the Gluten , Wheat and Dairy Free Cookbook by Antoinette Savill. This has been an absolute life saver for me when cooking for friends and family with food intolerances.

I have Marguerite Patten's everyday cook book. The orginal I bought in 1970 for 17/6. It did fall apart about 8 years ago and I managed to replace it with a better condition one for £23 on Amazon!!

I've got a couple of Dairy Diary cookbooks and for basic my BeRo cookbook is a good standby.

Nigel Slater for the way he writes about food and recipes.
Nigella for cakes and desserts.
Yottam Ottolenghi for something a bit different.
My very favourite book is “Salt, fat, acid, heat” by Samin Nosrat. I bought it after watching her Netflix series. A beautiful book, well worth the price and her Ragu is sublime!

Still use Be Ro books for baking and I have four versions - the earliest being my mums who passed away in 1973

Yotam Ottolenghi. Everything he has ever written. A total feast of colours, tastes and Depths of flavour. Quite time consuming and the entire kitchen needs cleaning after a marathon cook in due to the vast amounts of chopped herbs. But wonderfully delicious.

I love The Hairy Bikers diet recipe books, the meals taste too good to be slimming friendly. Delia Smiths cookery course is great also James Martin’s books -though his recipes are definitely not slimming! I use sites such as Pinterest too for recipes,although they are very American oriented.

I have two Mary Berry cookery books both on cakes etc. The first was bought for me by a teacher it’s paperback falling apart but it holds lots of memories. When I was a TA I baked with the children in the class ( that was when it was fun to do things not like now) they loved it. And when I baked with my two. The second one is a bigger version of the old tatty one which my gd. bought me.Am looking to buy Mary’s simple supper book.

I have an industrial number of cookery books. If asked I would say my favourite chef is Simon Hopkinson, but my desert island books are ‘Perfect’ and ‘Perfect Two’ by Felicity Cloake, the Guardian food writer. She takes classic recipes and then road tests versions of them by all the favourites- Delia, Nigella, the Roux brothers etc etc. Taking ideas from each, she ends up with a perfect amalgam and the resulting recipes are indeed perfect. If you Google ‘the perfect X’ you will generally find her version of most things. She is a genius.

I've got a huge number of recipe books as well as my Mum's one. However I still go straight to internet to find recipes. I take my tablet into kitchen which takes up less room than a book.

I have so many cookery books! Deliahs Christmas book is a favourite. Tried and tested ones are The Complete Farmhouse Kitchen Cook Book, Pru Leith and a Dairy Cookbook that my dad got off milkman ! I also use The Hummingbird Bakery books a lot.