What are your favourite recipe books you heavily use?

[treeindigo]

I love browsing recipe books for inspiration but find most of the ones I have I only like a few of the recipes. I'm not the most experienced of cooks so tend to like simple meals, don't really do fish. I have a few Jamie Oliver and River Cottage ones, wondering if Joe Wicks would be a good shout for simplicity.

What do you like?

The first pinch of nom recipe I've just googled required low calorie cooking spray and low fat cheddar, both are the work of the devil! I suppose you could just swap out like the poster who add carbs to the fasting800 books. Slimming world makes me quite angry so I'm a bit biased 😂

@KittytheHare I cook dinner from this book a couple of times a week even though I have a huge cookbook collection and lots of other favourites - Rick Stein and Nigella in particular. Nagi has a new recipe tin eats book coming out in October

Sarah Rossi - what's for dinner? and what's for dinner in one pot. Highly recommended.
Flavourful food that we all enjoy including our toddler!

Not an old favourite but I just bought One Pot One Portion by Eleanor Wilkinson as it was recommended by Nigella. Already made three recipes which were quick and really nice.

@Gillyyy I'm looking for something for my daughter who wants to learn how to cook but without making large amounts, since it's usually just her. Would you say One Pot One Portion would work well for that? It sounds like it from the title but I thought I'd better check! TIA 🙂

Simple - Yotam
Falastin - Sami Tamimi
Any of Sabrina Ghayours books
And I'm currently loving Greekish too

I’m the same! I cooked continuously from this book all summer, and yes I’m also looking forward to her new book.

Oh yeah we just use normal ingredients 😂 we’d just use olive oil and normal cheese haha!

The most 3 used here are:
Hairy dieters
The high protein handbook
And what's for dinner

I also re-use a fair few hello fresh recipes

@anon2022anon I love hello fresh for its simplicity, I sometimes get a box when I have 50% off codes and end up re-making the recipes often. I like the little tweaks they do to things like potatoes and vegetables to make them more interesting. What I like as well is that it's a whole meal including sides, recipe books usually only have the main dish and if it's something that requires a side to fill it out you then have to find something else I don't always have creativity to do, I like being told "this goes with this".

Any of the Melissa Helmsley books. Plus the Kitty Coles 'More with less' book.
They tend to use everyday fresh or store cupboard ingredients, are generally pretty simple to prepare & taste delicious. In fact every time I have a random selection of veg or leftovers in my fridge I can find a Melissa Helmsley recipe that will work.

I have some Nigel Slater and Jamie Oliver books, but my go to is BBC Good Food.
i also have some very old books that belonged to my mother, although some of the recipes need to be adapted for the modern palate and purse!

Jamie Oliver
Nigel Slater

I do this!! Recipes are super easy and Tate good. I just add pasta or something to make a full meal

Yes, you do! Then you'll get sucked in and end up buying her other books too. I chanced on one in a charity shop yesterday, and was so excited!

@saraclara Good shout on checking the charity bookshop first. One way or another, this is being purchased. It is my destiny!

We were eating badly due to lack of inspiration, and bought Rukmini Iyer's The Green Roasting Tin on recommendation from MIL who uses it to cook for us (we're veggie, they're not) when we visit.

We've been using it 3 or 4 times a week for the past few months and love it! There is also a meat and fish version. They are one pan meals as the title suggests - most are about 15 minutes prep followed by between 30 and 60 minutes in the oven. What I like is that several recipes will use the same ingredients so you don't end up with lots of spices and pastes where you've only used a tiny bit. There is also a section with recommendations for putting your own recipe together (in the veggie one that we have it's grains, veg, protein (legumes or dairy) plus herbs and spices.)

My two favourites are old.

Hamlin All colour cookbook

Sainsbury cookbook - Jocelyn Dimbledy

On top of the roasting tin, sodha, nigel slater.

There's one called food for thought, from late 90s covent garden veg restaurant - everything in it is lush.

Delia Smith's complete cookery course is probably my most used, but I have loads and love browsing them for inspiration

@Haroldwilson - wow, blast from the past! I just had a delicious flashback to Food for Thought’s Strawberry and Banana Scrunch and now I want some… Another book for the Christmas list!

Another one for the Green Roasting Tin, but I’m currently working through One Pot, Pan, Planet by Anna Jones.

Sarah Raven’s garden cookbook. Especially if you grow your own fruit or veg. It groups all the recipes by ingredients so easy to use what’s in season.

Nigella's Express. Recipes I use over and over.

I have a book called how to loose weight well by Chris van Tulken which sounds really uninspiring but all the recipes are extremely simple and delicious.
Also ministry of food, Jamie Oliver - again simple all taste good and covers basics