Best General cookbook, range cuisine in massive rut

[Fragalino]

In huge food rut, need general exciting book across range of cuisine.

Easy to follow not expensive ingredients, any ideas?

i really like the pinch of nom book. they are called 'slimming recipes', but i use them for the whole family x

Diana Henry, Simple or Cook Simple
Nigel Slater, Real Fast Food
Are packed with ideas, interesting combinations of flavours, and variations on classics. You are sure to be inspired.

I've owned Nige's Real Fast Food for many years, but although I loved his ideas, I just couldn't get some of the ingredients, so it sat lost & forgotten on the bookshelf.
But I came across it not long ago, and on re reading it, I realised that I can now buy those items, so my cooking has had a lovely lift from new dishes!

Nigella's Kitchen.
It has so many recipes with different types of food, the recipes are easy to follow and readily available ingredients.
Its a few years old too so you'll pick up a second hand copy cheaply.

River Cottage Every Day by Hugh F-W is my most used cookbook. Or The Roasting Tin. The was a recent thread extolling the virtues of the latter and a few of us bought it off the back of that thread.

I like Jamie Oliver books. Jamies Dinners is good for a range of different stuff from everywhere, ingredients are as inexpensive or expensive as you want them to be and you don't need a billion different kitchen gadgets. I also like Jamies Italy, while obviously it's based in Italian food, it's not all pizza and pasta.

The BBC Good Food Cookbook is brilliant as a basic, covers all bases recipe book.

Fab, I may try charity shops for some of these. I used to be adventurous but the dc palette is limited and I tend towards same stuff.

Do I need a food processor I know from Jamie programs he is always using one.

If so what food processor...

Jack Monroe really kickstarted my cooking a few years ago. I love a lot of the recipes in Cooking On A Bootstrap

Re food processor - my mum way saying there was a stand mixer for £40 coming up this week in Aldi

Fragalino I cook loads of Jamie Oliver stuff and rarely use my food processor. It comes out maybe once every 6 months if that and its usually to cream butter and sugar for baking.

Ministry of food is good if you are cooking with dcs. We got it when it first came out and dd was about 8 at the time and with me helping with the odd thing like hot trays from the oven, she could do a lot of the recipes herself. Might help with getting them to try new things.

Its also a really good book for getting the basics right. Things like proper gravy and Yorkshire puddings, pastry, nice tomato sauces etc. Then Jamies Dinners sort of builds on it to make similar family food but a bit fancier.

The most used cook books in our house (and dh is obsessed with buying them) are the Mary Berry ones. We have her Everyday book, Foolproof cooking and her latest, Quick Cooking. Her recipes just work.