Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Coffee Chat!


Good morning, everyone! Missy, here. Pull up a nice, comfy chair and your favorite hot beverage (mine is coffee strong enough to walk with lots of sugar-free hazelnut creamer and some Truvia), and let's chat.

Not long back, I shared a recipe from a new cookbook I bought. But before that, I bought the Hungry Girl 300 Under 300. I had seen it on TV and was fascinated. Over the weekend, I spent some time flipping through it, marking recipes with little sticky note flags. I hope to share a couple of recipes soon

So...

What's your favorite cookbook? What's the most recent cookbook you purchased?

23 comments:

  1. OH, OH, OH, OH, OH!!!!

    I love cookbooks. My most recent was a Paula Deen... I use a lot of Paula's recipes for parties and get togethers. Teas... showers... Our "Fight Like a Girl" Pink Party for my friend Lisa and her fight against breast cancer had a bunch of Paula's stuff served!

    And you know me. I talk big, but I eat healthy mostly and I'm a big believer that using Paula's stuff is WAY FUN... I love good ol' Southern gal cookin'! Butter my butt and call me a biscuit!

    Ya' gotta step out and have fun now and again! But I grab cookbooks when I'm out of town too. Regional ones. Historic ones. (although a lot of those recipes are not GOOD.) But it's fun to have a bunch of ideas around, right?

    Like for baked possum??? ;)

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    1. This is going to look like a reply to Ruthy only, but for the life of me, I can't find any other comment box this morning.

      Anyway, Missy, this is an easy one for me, but I have two answers.

      World's Healthiest Foods by George Mateljan - everything you EVER wanted to know and then some about healthy eating.

      Chef MD's big book of Culinary Medicine. I love the description of him - ChefMD® was born at the intersection of Food and Medicine.

      Both of these books have contributed mightily to my healthier eating. The recipes are delicious and good for you.

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  2. Ruthy, you've broadened my horizons with your baked possum book! LOL

    Mary, I'll check those out! But first...I have to run get my roots colored! Otherwise y'all might figure out how OLD I am!

    :)

    Be back soon...

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  3. My favourite standard cookbook is falling apart because it belonged to my mom first. It's the Red Roses Cookbook and it covers everything. Perfect for the beginner because it has tables of substitutions and helpful how-tos about why recipes don't work after each section. It even has pictures of a sectioned cow and what meat is best for what kind of dish. This is where I got my basic recipes for pancakes, cookies, cakes. Yum.

    I don't buy many cookbooks -- I'm not an adventurous cook so I tend to try recipes that have been tried and tested. I get them from friends or blogs like this. And my favourite online go-to spot is allrecipes.com because of their excellent feedback comments which are really helpful.

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  4. hmm the last one I bought I think was a Christmas gift for my mom and it was the Pioneer Woman Cooks - think that's the name. I enjoy reading through it. I have tons of cookbooks and can't pick a favorite - heck I've barely tried any recipes and seems I end up with 1-2 from different books. I enjoy reading through Rachael Ray's, would probably enjoy Paula Dean's but really I'd rather watch both of them(and Tyler Florence the little cutie pie!) anyways..some fun ones I got are Looney Spoons, Crazy Plates and Eat Shrink an Be Merry - they have lots of cartoons and quotes and stuff (but I'm still bummed the white chile wasn't really 'white' but now I know...) I also like to flip through the Top Secret REcipes cookbooks but no way I'm trying them - too many ingredients - though I did adapt one for Wendy's chili to the crockpot and a lower fat copy of Red Lobster's cheddar bay biscuits(no they didn't look like the real deal and didn't look good at all but they were good and that's what counts!). I also made a good white bean soup with spinach (made from scratch - the beans were dry!!) from 1001 lowfat soups and stews but the cuban black beans were blech (not that I know what cuban black beans are supposed to taste like but I was unimpressed)
    I'm also a sucker for church cookbooks and some my mom bought for herself and me a long long time ago - Barbara Richards or Richardson - she used to write a recipe column for the newspaper where we lived. I get a kick out of the church ones esp the older ones - you don't see a woman use her name it's always 'Mrs. James Alden' (i like the boxcar children!) never 'Suzy Alden' and in the more recent ones that changed.

    ok off to bed! night shift was tough.
    Susanna

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  5. I love church cookbook too, Susanna! I have one I bought down South called "The Southern Pastors' Wives Cookbook"...

    I wonder if Missy's in there, LOL????

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    1. I do the internet a LOT too - easier to print one though I'm having trouble at the hillbilly housewife blog trying to print :-( guess she wants me to buy all the ebooks for $25 each?! I just wanna try the beginner bread LOL! I also like skinnytaste and there's a blog -either skinny taste is the blog or that site links to the blog with a similar name. Pioneer woman's is nice but darn it I'm soo jealoust of that woman making all that $ from a blog that I'm nearly green!also like A Year of Slow Cooking blog though it's not as active as it was during her one year challenge.

      anyone know a good bread book for whole grains? is that king arthur one good for that? one review on amazon for one book complained the recipe didn't have 3 columns with one being weights in grams..um my margin of error is much much MUCH more that a gram or so!
      susanna

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    2. oops I had another post and it disappeared! was saying how we never had a preacher whose wife cooked so the book definitely wasn't from my area of east Texas LOL!
      susanna

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  6. My go-to cookbooks are the Betty Crocker Cookbook and the Ultimate Southern Living Cookbook. The latter is also my most recent purchase because my original got water damaged and all the pages stuck together. Of course, while I was at it I got the NEW Ultimate Southern Living Cookbook. My other fave is filled with recipes from the grandmama and greatmom I talked about yesterday. That's some good eatin'.

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  7. My most recent cookbook purchase was the King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion. Man, oh man, I love that book! It was on my wish list FOREVER, and then I was able to pick it up cheap when our Borders closed.

    At least something good can come out of a bookstore closing :( - but now we have Books-a-Million, which is almost as good.

    I go to the internet for a lot of my recipes now - Pioneer Woman's site is great, and allrecipes.com is my go-to if I'm looking for something new.

    I love church cookbooks, too. I have some from places we've lived over the years, and when I make an old friend's recipe it's like having a visit with her.

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  8. I'm back and I'm once again blonde! hehe

    Mary, I've added those books to my wish list. I love to try new, healthy recipes. Of course, I'm with Ruthy. I also love me some Paula Deen recipes!! :)

    Kav, my Betty Crocker cookbook has that meat chart so you know more about the different cuts. It's really helpful!

    I've also found recipes on allrecipes.com. I, too, love the feedback from people who've tried them.

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  9. Susanna, I've noticed the names written like that in older cookbooks, too! It's not something that's done much these days.

    I'm sorry you had a rough night at work.

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  10. Ruthy, I doubt I'm in there. Wouldn't you have to actually cook often to be included?? They'd probably be too ashamed to allow me in. ;)

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  11. Mindy, I just got a mailing for the new Southern Living cookbook. Was very tempted!! But I have the annual cookbooks collected for many years and need to go digging in those first. The thing I dislike about them, though, is hardly any photos!

    I love reading cookbooks and looking at the photos just for fun. Yes, I'm strange. :)

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  12. Jan, I love Ree Drummond's recipes! I've been watching her show on Foodnetwork. Have printed quite a few recipes already. I should just buy her cookbook/s. Will go add them to my wish list as well. :)

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  13. Oh -- I forgot to say that I LOVE kids' cookbooks and buy them for my school libraries. They have TONS of pictures and the recipes are sooooo easy! If you've never thought about checking out the kids section for cookbooks you should sometime!

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  14. What a great idea, Kav! I never would have thought of that.

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  15. The latest one I bought was The Deen Brothers cookbook - actually that was a couple of years ago. But it's a great cookbook - has their favorite recipes with the story behind the recipe, and lots of family pictures.

    My all time favorite cookbook is the original Taste of Georgia that came out years (decades) ago. I've used that book so much that the cover has come off and almost every page is dog-eared.

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    1. Oh, that one's on my wish list, Edwina! And Trisha Yearwood's cookbooks. The funny thing is, I don't cook nearly as much as I used to but I always dreamed of opening a bake shop/coffee shop/farm market some day so if that day comes, I intend to be prepared, LOL!

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    2. Edwina, I have the Taste of Georgia, too! My MIL got it for me. :) I need to pull that out. Haven't looked at it in years.

      Ruthy, I have Trisha's Georgia Cooking in an Oklahoma Kitchen. Really like that one.

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  16. Because we relocated across country twice, I'm sad to report that my once prized and extensive cookbook collection is now whittled down to only three books. But they are my go-to treasures. Of course, one is my inherited 1950s Betty Crocker, the next is an Amish cookbook that I've had since the 1970s, and the last book is on roasting veggies. I also supplement my recipe collection with websites.

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    1. My all-time most used cookbook is my 1950 Betty Crocker edition that I bought a few years ago because it was the one I grew up with and practiced with. I always loved to bake and create.

      I have the New Betty Crocker cookbook too, and that's got a mix of old favorites and time savers. A great book. I got copies for several of my kids.

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  17. Lyndee, I should weed my collection as well. We moved over ten years ago and I still have most of my cookbooks in a box! My Betty Crocker book is one of the ones I use most.

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