Cookbook that changed your life

[sarlien27]

4 months ago i bought my first cookbook online, and it completely changed the way i cook and treat food and ingredients. Fine dining recipes using cheap and healthy ingredients, i rarely ever eat out with my husband. Do you have a cookbook which changed the way you cook? Any recipes and secrets that make cooking fun for you and your family?

[Note: MNHQ have edited this message to remove OP's email address.]

How exciting a cookbook that works for you is great!for me it was jamie naked chef when I was at uni

I have literally 100s of cookbooks and by far the best ever for me was Jamie's ministry of food, then for baking nigella how to be a domestic goddess

I've got the Jamie's they're great
Have river veg cottage
Delia one is fun

I loved How to Eat by Nigella, really good back to basics book with loads of ideas

I'd searched for several years on holiday to find a book with a good apple flan recipe, and then found Faites vos patisseries comme Lenotre.

It cost me 139FF is coming apart, but is absolutely brilliant. It's out of print now, but the recipes are fantastic. It almost a professional patissiers book, and I lent it to a baker and he almost had tears in his eyes as he'd heard about it, but had never managed to see one.

His apple flan recipe takes me an hour including making the frangipane custard and the pastry and cooking it. I won second prize for an apple flan in our village at their fete d'automne with it, too.

Also, using this book I managed to make puff pastry that 'puffed' for the first time ever.

Mary Berry cake book and a classic French cookery one. Both have fail proof recipes for things that are not intuitive. Otherwise I don't really use cook books, although people keep buying them for me because I "like cooking"

an amazing cookery book from Crete, here full of delicious recipes, amazing food styling pix, and fascinating graphs about why Cretans live so long. Sadly it went missing in a house move....might have to get another.

also was just given the River cottage cookbook, by Hugh Fearlessly Eatsitall, some great ideas in there, esp if you live in the country and can shoot/run over bunnies. He is a bit of a piss taker though! there is one pic of him and friend loading sheep into the back of a landrover in some rather ...er....suggestive poses!

For me originally it was Delia's Complete Cookery Course. We were living off convenience food before that and she really did revolutionise the way we lived (and ate). I don't agree with all the things she's done since and I don't still do everything the way she says but she definitely taught me to cook.

More recently River Cottage Veg Everyday has enabled me to get far more healthy food into my family and to save money.

Don't laugh but the Dairy Book of Home Cooking which I bought when I left home. I still use it now love the retro pictures and is great for basic recipes and baking with the dc.

Crank's bible :)

I really love Delia's books too especially her Summer Collection. The recipes all turn out really well and no difficult to source ingredients either.

AmI, I think Delia is largely responsible for the fact that ingredients that were once really difficult to source are now easy. I remember watching her programmes in the 70s/early 80s when she would say things like "use freshly ground pepper, if you can get hold of whole peppercorns"

Nigel slater appetite. Changed my cooking forever. It has a main recipe and then variations on the theme (so fish cakes with white fish, but then do with tinned fish, make crab cakes, what about Thai prawn cakes etc) it is really inspiration and freeing. Love it.

Nigella's How to Eat for me. Basic recipes and I love how it is laid out according to the type of meal you are trying to cook.

Laurie Colwin's two books did it for me; lovely writing but with a purpose. Elizabeth David's An omelette and a glass of wine really got me, too

my copy of Cranks original is quite literally falling apart

Also Delia any of them!

Another vote for Delia's Complete Cookery Course. I was given a copy for my 21st birthday and I still use it.

I also like Nigel Slater's & Jamie Oliver's books.

I grew up learning how to cook with my mother, and her reference text was always a Good Housekeeping book that she'd had since the 60s. I would dearly love to have a copy of that in my own house, but have settled for an updated version (it's just called 'Good Housekeeping Cookery Book') that came out around 10 years ago. It really does go through everything, from how to truss a chicken to how long to keep and store food, to baking techniques and there are also lots of more 'modern' recipes that my mum's version doesn't have, using ingredients that wouldn't have been available in the UK back then. There is rarely a week goes by where I don't use it and it is fantastic.

Gosh yes I forgot my two essential ones!!! I have a very big brown good housekeeping one is use everyday, pancakes roasts scones and cakes , sauces etc, no fancy stuff just good old straightforward cooking and baking!

And the dairy book of home cookery, if I get a pork chop I refer to it for how to cook and which sauce,,that kind if thing

For baking the 'Biro book' it's simple and basic. My nana and mum both used it for years and now I do. Fail safe Victoria sponge.

Aged 19 I got 'Delia Smith's Complete Cookery Course'. Grew up in a family that can turn food from 'raw' to 'not raw' but not all that good at 'cooking'. The lovely Delia showed me how to make recognisable dishes. :) 30 years on I still use it.

The bero book. Still use it.

The Dairy book of home cookery for me too. The pictures are clearly rather dated now, but the recipes are good honest stuff.

The book that changed my who approach to food was not a cookbook, it was a food industry exposé.
www.amazon.co.uk/Not-On-Label-Really-Plate/dp/0141015667
After reading this book, we no longer relied on shop bought bread, bagged salads, prepped veg, convenience food. Checked labels for ingredients. Jointed my own chickens. No single cookbook stands out, I have many that I have learned from but none that have changed the way I cook.

tb you can still get that book on Amazon.fr. I'm a bit tempted from your apple tart description although the French might slow me down a bit

And it's not just me with the Dairy Book of Home Cooking - I think I've done every recipe.

My life changed radically 3 years ago - I needed a whole new repertoire of dishes and I've been through most of Jamie, Nigella and dear, dear Nigel Slater. But the book that really earned me compliments was Bill's Everyday Asian much bigger flavours, introduced me to new ingredients and I've never made anything that hasn't come out exactly like it should.