What are you favorite cookery books - and why?

[CountessDracula]

Have decided I need to buy 3 or 4 new books after a couple of years of not buying any.

I would like your recommendations. And if you can be arsed, your favorite recipe from your favorite book. Has to be something that doesn't take 100 years to cook but interesting, simple, delicious and a bit different if poss.

CountessDracula, have had "Good Tempered Food by Tamasin Day-Lewis out of library for last couple of months and there is everthing in it, Parkin, butterscotch sauce, choc puddings/brownies, tirmisu, irish stews, avocado type salad things, bread, Gazpacho, gorgeous bread recipes, home made ice cream , risottos and soup and much much more (I have very few books but will definetely buy this one) it's £14.99 and published by Orion Publishing and WHSmiths do sell it...also love real Fast Food by Nigel Slater...

Forgot to say why...because there are so many different things to cook, she talks you through it, the recipes are maximum a page in writing (and then only half as recipe ingredients take up other half), lovely foody pictures and because finally her passion for food is obvious and it really inspires you to just go ahead and try these recipes (this week children and I are going to try her bread type recipes...foccoccia or however you spell it oh and marmalade

How to Eat, Nigella. Lots of favourites from it but I loved just reading it. Also Nigel Slater, Appetite or Real Food. Real Food is better I think actually.

Nigella's Domestic Goddess - because it's just full of feel good food that isn't too much hassle to make but looks like you've slaved for hours!

Real Fast Food - Nigel Slater because it does what it says on the tin.

Annabel Karmel's Family Food Planner - if only for the gorgeous soup recipes which in the end I ended up scanning in/reprinting to put in a splash-proof binder in my "regularly cook" folder because the book was getting a bit tacky!

My favourties are Nigella's Domestic Goddess, and How To Eat if I'm coooking for special occassions. For everyday cooking I like Nigel Slaters Real Fast Food and Ainsley Harriots Meals in Minutes.

Just reread the favourite recipe bit. Here's mine, but it's not from a book - nicked it off my mum but no idea where she got it so I hope it's not plagarised from somewhere:

Vegetable Lasagne
Ingredients

225g carrots
225g courgettes
1 onion
100g celery
1 chicken stock cube (or vegetable stock cube if catering for vegetarians. I prefer the flavour the chicken stock cube gives though)
25g butter
2 level tablespoons of flour
½ pint of milk
salt and pepper (I tend to omit this as I forget, and it's probably healthier without and there's salt in the stock - still tasty)
175g lasagne (although this depends on the dish size - get the quick cook stuff not the one you have to precook)
175g grated cheddar cheese
Method

1. Preheat oven to 190°C (375°F Gas Mark 5)

2. Place the chopped vegetables in a saucepan with the stock cube and ¼ pint boiling water. Yes, I know that doesn't look enough fluid, but trust me, it is. Bring to the boil and simmer for 10 minutes.

3. Melt the butter in a pan, stir in the flour and cook gently for one minute, stirring. Remove the pan from the heat and gradually stir in the milk. Bring to the boil and continue to cook, stirring, until the sauce thickens, then add seasoning to taste. If too thick, add a little stock from the vegetables.

4. Put layers of vegetables, lasagne, and only two thirds of the cheese (alternatively!) in a shallow, oblong or square, 3 pint dish, finishing with a layer of lasagne. Pour the sauce over the top and cover with the rest of the cheese.

5. Bake in the oven for about 30 minutes.

6. Serve with salad and/or crusty bread.

Serves: 4. Unless you're us where 2½ people get through the whole batch because we go back for seconds...

God we are a preditable bunch I also love by Nigella Lawson and Nigel Slaters. I read them at night like a novel, their passion for food inspires you to get off your bum and real food.

I still look back at my Delia Smith's but she seems so fussy in comparison- having said that her Christmas book comes out every year for me.

Georgina we laso use the Annabel Karmel books and mine are in a state now as well. But even worse is my copy of How to Eat which I left on a window sill only for it to get damp. Had to prise apart all the pages tonight. My favourite recipe from her book is the clementine cake.

My dp jokes that i am a domestic goddess as I sit goddess like whil he does the housework! Not true I just want to add- well not completely anyway.

I still have a soft spot for Jamie Oliver, I love his 'bung in a bit of this and a bit of that' approach as that is how I tend to cook. My all time favourites are his fish pie and perfect roast chicken - stuffed with lemons and herbs. Yum

I like most of the ones mentioned. I'm a real fan of Lawson and Slater. Dielia never fails, and for basics, like how long to roast a joint, or make a sauce I always turn to my Good Housekeeping....recipies are a bit dull and 'prissy' but it is unbeatable for the basics. I also have a very funny and quirky American book that is great for some things, peacemaker stuffing for chicken, hot fudge sauce, and coke basted ham. I was doing it years before Nigella, darling.....

Definately Donna Hay - Off the Shelf, and another by her is Modern Day Classics. She is an Australian chef/writer but you can get them over here. Full of really easy, healthy, but beauiful recipes. I have loads of cook books, and I use her the most.
Another one is Stephanie Alexander - the Cooks Campanion (australian again). It's listed by ingredients, so you can look up Lamb and it will tell you what different cuts you can get, ways to cook it, store it and the best recipes for it. Its a huge book but it covers everything. Happy cooking!

How to Eat by Nigella (but none of others), Simply The Best (Tamasin Day Lewis), all my Nige Slater ones and the BEST of all, the Books for Cooks 'compilation' booklets - brilliant and foolproof.

Thanks everyone. I will go and browse at some of these and let you know what I decide!

Leith's cookery bible is brilliant (everything turns out wonderful and really tasty)!

Also love Nigella and Jamie, but for something different try "Dear Francesca" by Mary Contini. It's half cookbook, half memoir, and was intended to pass on her Italian family cooking heritage to her daughter (via Glasgow). It really is a joy to read, but has lots of foodie advice rather than really structured recipes (although there are a few interesting stews and soups, and of course things to chuck into pasta)

Antonio Carluccio's book. I can't remember what it's called, but it has an interesting range of Italian foods, not 'simple', but not impossible and full of rarified ingredients, either. I make open mushroon ravioli and courgette fritters and that layered fried aubergine and cheese dish from it fairly frequently.
I'm going to get Nigel Slater next.

One more for you CD. "Cook now, eat later" by Mary Berry is my latest cook book and I have never cooked so many recipes from one book. Loads of ideas and only about 4 steps in each recipe. I tend to get everything prepared earlier in the day when ds is sleeping. Then in the oven later and it's ready as soon as ds is in bed for the night. Highly recommended.

CD you have to try Bill Granger's books (Sydney Food, Bill's Food, and another one that just came out). Sections on Breakfast, Lunch, Afternoon Tea and Dinner, so there's a good selection of stuff, it's simple and delicious and most of it can be done quickly. I have too many favourites to mention from these....
Also love Nigella's How to Eat, Domestic Goddess and Nigella Bites. Also started to use 'Organic Cooking' from Ysanne Spevack, (as have become earth mother type with my veg and fruit box weekly delivery). Her book follows the seasons and I have made a spiced vegetable couscous from it which was pretty yummy. Joanne Harris' book on French cooking is quite good too actually, well worth a try.
I looove cook books....

Just bought a signed 'Keith Floyd in Italy' book at a charity shop for £3.50

Agree with all the recommendations so far. Last week, however, I started doing quite a few from Jamie Oliver's first book (used to refuse to look at his books on principle - not sure what the principle was but...) and they've been really good. I'm converted. Try the fish pie - sumptious, set to be done quite regularly I think

tinker - me too! (well, dp's priciple was that he thought Jamie was a fat-tongued a*se, but I don't know what mine was - think I thought he was too young to know all that stuff).

Fave recipe (from Jamie's first one) - salt-cooked fish:

get a whole fish (gutted), slap some salt in an oven dish, put fish in, cover with salt and sprinkle on water, put in oven for 10mins per kilo, then let stand for 15 mins, crack off the salt lid and pick out the fish!

It's delicious with the fish known in Spain as Dorada - can't remmeber what it's called in English though (John Dory? )

Marguerite Patten's Cookery In Colour.

Every housewife back in the 70's had this book and it was my favourite when I lived at home. My mum wouldn't let me have her copy so after much searching I have just got one off ebay - Yippee!!!!

Lots of really useful recipes and apparently a very good Xmas cake recipe - but I haven't tried this yet.

I also love those Australian Womens Weekly cook books that you'll find in bookshops on a swivel stand - I LOVE THEM!!

Oh I've got Margeurite Patten's Perfect Cooking - I refer to it for loads of things. Really 70's but it has everything in it.

SP - think I was just jealous of his funky lifestyle.

oh this is really sad (can't get them over here) but any of the Canadian Living cookbooks!! I have several. I've never gotten used to the system of measuring and weighing over here.....I always write in the margin of the page if it turned out or not, or what I did differently (drives dh mad) to the directions.

if your feeling a bit wholesome i would recommend 'gaia's kitchen' by julia ponsonby. delicious recipes, it taught me to cook!