Please recommend me your best cook books.

[Milliways]

I have some very old books with nothing inspiring in them, + delias Christmas, Summer & Autumn books - which I like.

Nothing fancy, and we don't do fish.

Toying with a Nigella & a Jamie. Are they worth the money, which are best. Or someone else.

I have vouchers to spend

Gary Rhodes - Keep it Simple
Delia - How to Cook and the Veggie cookbook
Donna Hay
Nigel Slater - Real Fast Food

How freaky - I use exactly the same as Mercy: Real Food, Delia complete - and my mum's old copy of @An omelette and a glass of wine'!
Also love Prue Leith and Good Housekeeping, and the Crafty cookbook by Michael Barry.

Am a big fan of Donna Hay - great tasty reliable recipes. Beautiful photos if the food - just great. I think I have her whole collection.

Also dip into the Dinner Lady, Gina Fords cookbook, Feast & Domestic Goddess by Nigella (like baking) Not keen on Jamie...bit messy, hit & miss.

TBH I got Jamie's dinners for Christmas and I am a bit disappointed with it. Not that much in it IMO.

I use Delia's complete cookery course, Ainsley's meals in minutes and an NCH Charity collection quite a bit. But the one I have made most out of is called 1001 recipes or something like that and I got it for £1.99 in Asda years ago. Unfortunately it is falling to bits and I have had to start typing my recipes (including my Christmas cake recipe) onto the computer and printing them out.

One of the most used cookbooks in our house is the Covent Garden Soup book

Baking naughty things and with kids - Nigella Domestic Goddess, Marks and Spencer?s "Tarts" book is great too surprisingly.
Everyday/Classic recipes - Leith?s Bible
Reading but not cooking - River Cottage Family Cookbook
(Jamie?s book are good too )

Own but never use :
Gary Rhodes New British Classics (too many ingred. too time consuming, looks good but quickly put off)
Cranks Bible - lovely piccies, lovely sounding recipes but badly laid out and every recipe seems to have a few hard to get ingred. /unusual size tin that puts me off

theh silver spoon (italian) over 50 years old and I swear by good old Delia's complete cookery course.

Dont much like all these newby trendy cooks that write like they are writing a novel, (paragraph after big fat paragraph) I like my title, ingredients needed, and bullet pointed or numbered method/directions. I get confused with the newby books

River Cafe anyone?!

Hallgerda, not a new book but have a look at Eastern Vegetarian Cooking by Mahdur Jaffrey.

Nigella How to Eat.
Moro.
Any Claudia Roden (not just for cooking but for reading and dreaming).

i got jamies Italy book for christmas and its fab. have made all the risottos already.

and i have a very dogeared Ainsleys Meals in Minutes - best book i ever bought, lots of tasty things for the whole family that can be rustled up from scratch in less than 40 mins or so. and the ingredients are not way-out or expensive

Can really recommend 'The River Cottage Family Cookbook', bought before Christmas and all the recipes we've tried so far have been really good. Sadly 9mo DS not that interested in joining in yet....

This time of year tend to use a really good low fat cook book I have as well but can't remember the name of it. (V unhelpful I know)

Sorry, also meant to recommend bol.com to buy cookbooks. They had 'How to Eat' on there for £3.50 before Christmas

I love all my Nigella books, and my Gary Rhodes.

Gary's puddings are fantastic!

I have a plethora of cookbooks that I have 'acquired' over the years (Dont think Ive ever actually gone and bought one, just get them given to me) and the onces I use most are Katie Stewarts the Calendar cookbook (or something like that its BRILLIANT), Floyd on Britain and Ireland (has fab recipies form loads of people), Good Housekeeping cookbook, Ainsly's Meals in Minutes and Readers digest 'the cookery year'.

But I really want the lovely Darina Allen cookbook Mammy has at home. It looks fab and was drooling over it.

Thanks for the recommendation, Mercy, but I've already got it. The peanuts and tofu in hoisin sauce (can't remember the exact name) and pecel from that book are among my favourites. Some of the recipes are a bit too involved though- I'm glad someone told me about those bags of dried milk available in Indian shops for those who can't hang around several hours boiling down milk to make sweets or kuli!

Is Darina Allen Rachel's (Saturday Kitchen) mum?

MIL i read somewhere Tinker... have head full of this sort of useful information....

The only problem I find with Nigella is that her cakes and puddings tend to be too sweet. So have got into the habit of putting a little less sugar in. Also, the cooking times (i.e. for meringue based cakes and puddings) can be a little off so sometimes extra time in the oven required. Initially thought it was the fault of our 38 year old cooker (we bought my mother's house, with her cooker in situ that she cooked for me with), but don't have the same problem with Delia or Nigel Slater. Like Jamie Oliver, but the Louisiana chicken from the Dinners book is RANK. [[shudder]].

Tinker, Darina Allen is Rachel's MIL. I haven't seen the tv programmes but was given her book (Rachel's Favourite Food) as a present last year and have used it a lot. I have some of Darina's books but don't use them a lot really but they are handy for looking up basic things (like quantities for pancakes).

Does anyone get the Delicious magazine? I have bought a couple of issues and have taken loads of recipes from there which I now use regularly. I think it's good if you want to expand your range of recipes but don't want to buy a book (which you'll probably only use for two or three recipes regularly anyway, ime)

Thansk mm and tlr. Love Saturday Kitchen, comfort telly.

If you're interested in baking and are a bit bored with Domestic Goddess (I love it, but fancied something new), I really recommend a book called Home Baked which is from The Australian Women's Weekly but is published here too. My sister gave me a copy and I made the last-minute fruit cake for Xmas which was delicious, really moist, and sis has made various cheesecakes and all have turned out brilliantly. Recipes are easy to follow, a bit different as they are Aussie and yummy. Am about to do the family choc cake with fudge frosting for ds1's b'day, it look wonderful. There goes my diet.

I'm going to have a bash at Nigel's chocolate brownies today - diet be damned!

sorry missed that hermykne but obviously would love to swank about wedding food

champagne cocktails or a non alchy punch (ginger beer/apple juice/blackberries)
various fantastic canapes - the duck tartlets and the thai prawn ball things from Diva Cooking, plus four other things which I didn't get to see or try too busy chatting

then roast fillet of beef with red wine and bacon jus, stilton mash and green beans (we got married in December) OR duck legs with ginger and soy OR a veggie thing which no one had I think it was wild mushroom risotto

then chocolate ganache tart

it was all lush and teh best bit was that before the wedding I went to her house to eat my way through five different dinner ideas