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?

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Nigel Slaters kitchen diaries changed the way I cook, eat and think about food. Some of the recipes are amazing, most are really ideas on a page, but his style of writing makes me want to cook, his assembling of a dinner is ridiculously simple with outstanding result- beforehand a salad to me was iceberg lettuce, tomato and cucumber, snacks were convenience foods- crisps, cereal bars etc., I hadn't been introduced to snacking on real food. Nor had I been introduced to the idea that cooking for one should still be great cooking, not a pot noodle or cheese sandwich. Admittedly the lifestyle he sells is not realistic and certainly not family focused, but after reading, and I often re read it for pleasure alone, I always feel like I want to cook and eat better.

BBC Good Food 500 Triple Tested Recipes. It was the first cookbook I learned to cook from. The recipes are so easy. I realised that cooking wasn't as hard as I thought it was and by following the recipes I discovered a love of cooking. The recipes aren't anything fancy. Just good family meals, which make a great foundation to anyone wanting to learn to cook.

Yes, I forgot the Good Housekeeping Cookery Book - I use that all the time. It's a real classic.

I also have a very old Bero book, which first taught me how to bake.

Ooh, yes, LOVE my Be-Ro booklet thing as well...

Oh my, yes the bero book too!!

Reader's Digest Cookery year. Taught me how to fillet a fish, joint a chickem, clean a crab and has the best paella recipe.

for basics I use Delia (things like yorkshire puddings etc) I also love the morra spanish restaurant book. The chorizo and butter bean salad is my go to dish

Ottolenghi, without a doubt!!!

Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cookery, I think the edition I have is out of print now but there are more recent copies available. The recipes are delicious, especially the pulse section, although she puts a ridiculous amount of garlic into things so I generally use about a third of what she says.