I am going to try every recipe from my cook books..

[BloodyCats]

Anyone want to join me?
I’ve decided that I’m going to try every recipe from my various cook books in the new year. I’ve a terrible habit of looking through them, thinking “ooh that looks nice!” and then going ahead and cooking the same rotation of meals I always cook.

If anyone wants to join me, you know where I am

[handbagsatdawn33]

I remember a film about someone cooking their way through a cook book, but can't remember the name of it.

I subscribe to eatyourbooks.com, & it lists 11,536 recipes in my books that are indexed - some of the older ones are not.
At 1 dinner per day, that's over 31 years, then add to that all the ones I printed from the WWW...

Seriously, that site is useful to me for inspiration. Pork chops? 50 in my books, & 1,482 online recipes.

Good luck.

[ScoutFinchsHam]

The movie is Julie and Julia, I watched it last week (Julia Child’s cook book). I always look through my cookery books and never make anything, either...

[smemorata]

I don't think I could live long enough to do every recipe! (I have a lot of books). I definitely want to try some new ones though. Why don't you post which books you have and we could have a cook-a-long thread?

[WeirdPookah]

I have, for the last 4 years, tried to try a new recipe every week. This year is the first time I've managed over 52 new recipes!

It's a lot of fun, not all are successful or repeated but it's great to not be in a boring rut.

I have loads of cookery books, I started keeping notes in them for ones I have done loads of recipes from, like Jamie Oliver's Super foods or James Wong's 10-a-day.

[BloodyCats]

I couldn’t decide whether to use a recipe from a selection of books weekly or choose 1 or 2 books to stick to.
I think maybe 2 books will work better. I will aim to cook something from them at least once a week.
I’m just so bored of the same old meals.
Might have to watch that film!

[Peanut91]

I felt the same end of last year so this year I have cooked a new meal twice a week. Some have been a disaster, lots have been winners but its been fun to adventure outside of the standard repetoire of dishes

[BloodyCats]

I have chosen these two.
Feel free to choose your own books and post your meals. It might inspire us to try something new.

[maxelly]

I do this! So far I have cooked my way through Rick Stein's Venice to Istanbul, Jamie's 30 minute meals and Nigella's At My Table - very slowly as I go at the rate of 1 a week most weeks so it takes a year or more to get through them. I really enjoy it, for me and the family one 'new meal' a week with the rest being from the normal repertoire is the right balance, and I always select a book which is largely suitable for family dinners with some fancier dishes (which I make at the weekends). I also allow myself some judicious skips for things which I know we won't like (e.g. Rick Stein has some offal recipes) or which require the purchase of new kitchen equipment (Nigella!) or really esoteric ingredients (Jamie!).

The only issue is that in the last year I have gone from an occasionally-meat-eating-but-mainly-pescetarian into a nearly-all-the-time-veggie, which makes cooking from a mainstream cook book tricky. So I think my next choice is going to have to a be a vegetarian cookbook. Anyone got any recommendations? Not something aimed at beginners or anything which is all curries/stir-frys (I love them but one a week every week is too many!)

[WeirdPookah]

I'm continuing with Jamie Olivers Veg, James Wong 10-a-day (done pretty much all of them!).

I asked for a Skyrim cookery book for christmas, so might be all sorts of gaming inspired Nordic food coming

[TakeMeToYourLiar]

@maxelly you can't go wrong with Yotam Ottolenghi

[ChristmasFairyDogsOfThigh]

I love this idea, i am terrible for buying a cookery book, reading it from cover to cover, marking at least 4 or 5 that i will definitely do, then churning out the same old, same old, until eventually the book joins all the others on the shelf.
I think i could commit to one recipe a week, but whether i could stick absolutely to the recipe, or whether i would have to tweak it a bit, remains to be seen.

[GemmeFatale]

@maxelly I have that Rick Stein. How did you find it?

[toomuchlikemyusername]

For those of you who have successfully done something like this - cooking something new every week - how do you build this into your planning and shopping? I love the idea of cooking new stuff more often but find that by the time I've figured out what I'm going to cook, what I need to buy, then actually buy the ingredients etc, I find the moment has passed and I resort to old faves that I can do from the store cupboards.

I would love to hear how you plan and organise in order to do this week on week, in the hope it may help me! Thank you.

[WeirdPookah]

I have a week to view diary for meal planning. So I plan everything out ahead, shop from a list created by the meal plan!

[maxelly]

@GemmeFatale it was a bit hit and miss TBH, especially as a book to cook midweek family dinners from. Some things were really lovely and quite easy, e.g. the chicken and orzo one pot, the lamb and aubergine roasted stew. The mezze and the seafood pasta things are nice but a bit of a faff so those tended to be saved for parties/weekend treats. Some of the more stew/slow cooked joint type things didn't really work well, especially when I tried to scale down to cater for fewer people/less meat, I tended to find he massively underestimates the amount of liquid you need and things end up very dry and tough unless you compensate. Probably overall my least favourite of the 3 books I've done TBH, I would perhaps keep it more for cooking an occasional weekend or dinner party dishes.

Re meal planning, the key is being organised in advance, by the time you are getting ready to cook dinner in the evening/at the shops it's too late IMO. I make my meal plan at the same time as I do my big weekly shop (usually online but you could make a list if you shop at the store). I keep an 'audit' list of what we have in the freezer and cupboards, and before I start I make a note of anything hanging around the fridge that needs using up. Then the meal plan usually looks something like:

-1 new meal from my cookbook
-1 or 2 meals which use up things we already have in the fridge/freezer/cupboards
-2 or 3 meals from our regular rotation of family favourites
-1 or 2 meals as easy freezer meals or takeaway or Sunday roast

Then I make a list of what we need, cross referencing with what we already have to avoid duplication, and try and only buy from that list, ignoring random 'bargains' or treats - the beauty of online is there's less temptation for impulse buys and if I do see something I really fancy then I can go back revise the meal plan accordingly.

I loosely write down what day we plan to have each of these based on the schedule, who's in and who's out etc., but it is flexible so if I've had a work crisis or transport disaster and come in late and knackered, I can swap that night to an easy night and cook the planned meal tomorrow...