General Chat

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

Sue xx

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

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.

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

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

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

I used to have a copy of 'The Joy of Sex', but it disappeared when we moved. I loved those line drawings and the bloke in it was quite dishy - really 70's look and hairstyle and a good 6-pack - in fact, being an artist, I got more pleasure out of looking at the drawings than the text if I'm honest. I'm a bit like that with cook books - I look at the pics and think I can do it, but I can't! Answer to the flour question on your other thread, please. All purpose - is that plain or self raising?

I'm pig sick I lost that book - it's probably a collectors' item now!

Nah, that's the problem with it. ;)

Actually, come to think of it, it is rather like -- little line drawings of things here and there.

Page 420 does have sketches illustrating the instructions for trussing a chicken ...

;)


That is where The Joy of Sex got its name though! The Joy of Cooking is kind of the gold standard cookbook in the US, so it was the obvious choice for a complete guide to ... anything ...

Is it on the same theme as 'The Joy of Sex' - lots of pics to explain, ha, ha!!

Could have its occasional uses, too :-)

Susan# - the brownie recipe - I stuck up a thread

http://www.genesreunited.co.uk/boards.asp?wci=thread&tk=1205934

because everybody deserves these divine morsels. ;)

The Joy of Cooking does have its occasional uses!

Me too Gwen...I have a few...they are so simple yet good looking if you know what I mean.

I have American measurement cup thingies so they are not a problem.

Ta TW...will look it up


Can't explain Michelle....I don't know of one for dog food lol

I LOVE KIDS COOK BOOKS

BUT I DO HAVE ONE CALLED
I LIKE CALLED
THE NOSTALGIC COOK BOOK
BUT NO PICTURES

That's very true about ingredients -- also measurements. I have some Brit cookbooks that measure things by weight. What, I'm supposed to have kitchen scales? ;)

What I would do, S#, is go to a big bookstore and spend an hour in the cookbook section. There are loads and loads of ones like my Indian -- large format, not too thick, full of pictures. I have a pasta cookbook much the same, only softcover. About 250 pages, the books are maybe 12" by 15" and an inch thick -- it sounds unwieldy, but it's actually a lot easier to work with than a smaller thicker thing. My rather old Joy of Cooking is more like 8x10 and over two inches thick - smaller print, no pictures, not nearly as easy to refer back and forth to. Or as much fun to browse.

And definitely check out remainder tables in bookstores. There are often things just like that going cheap.

Just see what catches your fancy! An exotic one, a basic family-dinner one, a pasta one, a baking one. You said you wanted to buy "some" cookbooks. ;) You're more likely to try the recipes if the dishes look kind of special and don't all run into each other and look the same, the way they tend to do in all-purpose cookbooks. You know, 20 pages with fifty-seven ways to cook chicken and you can't tell half of them apart ...

It's the brownie recipe you want? I'll try to remember to bring it over tomorrow. I'm drooling just thinking about it.

What's a cookbook? lol

The Farmhouse Kitchen.

It's one from the daytime TV series in the 80s. My original copy fell apart, but I found a new on on Ebay, so I'm thrilled to bits. I've used dozens of recipes from it.

There's one on Amazon now
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Complete-Farmhouse-Kitchen-Cook-Book/dp/0004112563


EDIT: Unfortunately, it doesn't have pictures...sorry

Susan - yes cooking may be cooking but I have mistakenly bought a couple of cookbooks that turned out to be Australian (produced by international women's magazine) and they call for ingredients that either we can't get in UK or just simply call by different names

Not really Lady In Red......cooking is cooking :-)))


Ta Janey would appreciate it.

I think Amazon.co.uk does most books from abroad.

What I am looking for are books that have many recipes that one would use and not just a couple and the rest being too high falootin :-)))

Names perleese Suemaid....Tescos here used to do brilliant cook-books....I bought one....gave it to my daughter , thinking that I would get another when next in there......they went and changed their book intake...... No more cookbooks...just Mills and Boon type stuff...... Oh woe is me! ( but that is another story)

Susan - think it depends what country you in and what kind of cooking you want to do?

I like the supermarket cookbooks. We get a couple here - one called Superfood Ideas and the other Recipes. They are generally quick and easy and don't use too many fancy ingredients.

Sue xx

I have it sitting here beside me -- had to email the recipe for curry powder to my BFF so she could get another batch made up for my late Xmas prezzie. I'm not into grinding things, myself.

The New Indian Cooking Course.

Healthy Indian cooking -- veg oil, no ghee, and like that. Really good for you and delicious. Gorgeous pictures, step by step (if sometimes complicated) instructions. But you can simplify them. You can make chicken saag with tinned tomatoes and frozen spinach and some spices, without following the complete course of directions laid down there. ;) And they're nowhere near as complicated as "authentic" recipes anyhow.

But it's out of print, I believe. I got it remaindered. And I think that's not what you're after, heh.

... Yikes, amazon.com does show it available -- $50 new (I paid $10!) but $10 used. And amazon.co.uk has 3 used from £12.35 -- pricey, but if you like Indian cookery, it's the best I've run into.

Anyhow. The Joy of Cooking.

For basic recipes in the hundreds, can't be beat (although of course it leans to the US in its sources). I switched to its Yorkshire pudding recipe the last time I made it, and No.1 declared it the best I'd ever made.

And the brownies I made him for Valentine -- I didn't think I was capable of producing such a supremely divine object of bakery. Unbelievably perfect and delicious. Want the recipe? ;)