General Chat

Try Nigella's 'Rocky Road' - it's gone in a flash with my lot.

You can tell your favourite cookery book by the fact that the pages are stuck together with floury-bits, don't you think?

Plus, the cut out newspaper recipes that I've used again and again - and my grandma's hand-written recipe for parsley and lemon forced meat stuffing. No Christmas should be without it!

On which note, I also have my grandma's dad's book on how to.........

cure toothache (apply diluted tincture of arsenic, I kid you not),
remove rust stains (something called salts of lemon)
take grease stains out (brown paper and carbon tetrachloride)
and cure a weak heart (sal volatile, whatever that may be)

Funny, he lived to be nearly 100

Sue x

Sue, now I feel ancient! I have used carbon tetrachloride and brown paper to remove grease from fabric lol

And I have heard of sal volatile too!

Susan, why not visit all the charity shops in the vicinity and have a look, people seem to donate lots of cook books to places like that. I have several but rarely use them, I am a chuck it in and see what it tastes like sort of person and haven't made cakes for ages.

Lizx

I have heaps of cookery books. The one I used to use constantly before OH took over the cooking in this house.....................

No ladies, you may not borrow him, he is the sum total of several decades of hard work!!

........Anyway where was I. My favourite is the ring binder I have containing all the recipes I have gathered over the years, first from my Mum and then from friends and cookery books and magazines.

As for a purchased cookbook....... As I have said before when we were discussing Yorkshire Pud elsewhere, no Australian woman would be without her Country Women's Association Cookery Book and Household Hints. My version is the thirtieth and dated 1975. It contains everything you ever need to know about cooking from scratch. And I mean down on the farm go chase the chook and catch it first scratch. And household hints, let me see.

"To Test Eggs for Freshness. Fill a basin with water and put the eggs in one by one. A fresh egg sinks to the bottom and lies flat. If it rises slightly it is not perfectly fresh, and it is floats, it is bad."

So off you go grab the eggs and the basin of water. Oh and don't drop them in, do it gently.

Hi Susan,

A picture for every recipe!!

Try Hamlyn All Colour Cook Book

Over 300 quick and easy recipes all illustrated in full colour.

Covers all the tables for the different temperatures and weights and a variety of sweet and savoury dishes.

Gina

Isn't sal volatile smelling salts? Wouldn't that be enough to kill someone with a weak heart lol

Sue xx