Olive Sprouts

Cookbooks!

I own two main cookbooks, a 1963 edition of Joy of Cooking, and Better Homes and Gardens' Complete Step-by-Step Cook Book. (I also like my Better Homes and Gardens Cooking for Today Pasta cook book. It has some good recipes for interesting sauces.)

My mother also owns a Joy of Cooking and Complete Step-by-Step Cook Book. Her Joy of Cooking is from 1975, and is white. Mine is a minty green color. She was delighted when she found me my own Complete Step-by-Step Cook Book, since she had told me that if she didn't find one she felt that she should give me her copy someday when I got married. I was touched that she would consider parting with her treasured cook book for my sake.

Joy of Cooking has just about everything. I made Shepherd's Pie the other day, and it was in there. (Mind you, it told me to make and use 'hash' for the filling, but the leftover soup turned into a very nice filling with some thickening and the addition of some veggies.)
Last week I had a rash notion that I should try to make a souffle. As I look through it tonight, titles sound so good-- Pineapple Souffle, Chocolate, Lemon, Fresh Fruit, and Hazelnut Souffle's all seem to beckon my imagination. Of course, my imagination is hampered slightly by the fact that I can't remember what a souffle is supposed to look like, but my imagination has never been one to give up at small obstacles. On page 203, the authors begin the section labeled "About Souffles and Timbales".
Some excerpts:

'The souffle is considered the prima donna of the culinary world...usually based on a Bechamel or cream sauce...must always be kept away from drafts and be served at once in the ovenproof straight sided dish in which it was cooked...If your guests are assembled, prepare the souffle. If not it may be like the beauty Horace Walpole commented on: "She is pretty with the bloom of youth but has no features and her beauty cannot last." '

I quickly realized that I am nowhere near the level of cookery I'd need to be at to even think about trying a souffle. ;-)
But that is the good thing about the Joy of Cooking-- due warning. The authors go through step by step (occasionally telling you, just in case, not to do something), and explain what you need to do. In this case, I realized that what they wanted from me was not realistic because of my cooking skill and the fact that assembling boys and making sure hands are clean, etc, might take more than the ten minutes that it said was the maximum time before serving that a souffle could possibly sit in a warming oven! Still, it was fun to read about.

The Complete Step-by-Step Cook Book has it's own good things, too, though, most notably step by step photographs of each step on recipes they think are hard, or that if you master, you can make the others using those same skills. I had it out last week reading up about how much yeast they used in their bread recipes. My two loaf batches take 1 T, 1 tsp, and 1/2 tsp, and I think it may be too much.

Family recipes, and recipes I have from other books and friends, are being written one by one into a spiral hard cover notebook that a friend gave me, which isn't very methodical, or alphabetized, but which is I think a useful place to write down recipes as I make them-- usually honey instead of sugar, and half whole wheat flour, and sometimes different baking times.

So... what are your favorite cookbooks? :-)