10 Year Anniversary: Top 10 Favorite Cookbooks

I may have a small cookbook obsession. I enjoy reading cookbooks from cover to cover like they are novels treating them like entertainment as much as a source of recipes. Fortunately for my wallet and my shelf space, I discovered about 5 years ago that you can check out cookbooks from the library – don’t ask why this never occurred to me before, of course they would have all kinds of books!  So now I ‘vet’ my cookbooks by checking them out from the library, reading or scanning them cover to cover and putting them on my wishlist based on my preview.

To help me make better use of my cookbooks and search for a recipe, I use Eat Your Books which is this really cool website where you can save your cookbooks and then search for recipes.  The site will scan your library of cookbooks and return recipes for what you’re looking for based on recipe title or ingredient. A side effect of using this website is that I now know that I have 225 cookbooks (at least as of the writing of this post – it’s subject to change at any time more frequently around my birthday or the holidays).

As I thought about my cookbook collection, I thought about the various categories and reasons that I keep cookbooks.  Some are nostalgic like the Ely Cookbook full of recipes submitted by people in the town and created when I was a kid, some are educational and focus on techniques, some focus on a specific type of ingredient (I have cookbooks all about avocados, onions and blueberries) or type of cookware (Airfryer, Dutch Oven, Sous Vide or Slow Cooker), some focus on a type of food (ice-cream, dinner, sides, pasta, pizza, tacos), cuisines (Italian, Mexican, Chinese) or a type of cooking method (grilling) or type of food like wild game. Other cookbooks are by Chef’s or bloggers that I like. And then there are the cookbooks that remind me of a place either a cookbook that I pick up on vacation or maybe after a vacation when I try to replicate something I had. Friend and family will also sometimes get me cookbooks as souvenirs when they travel too.

I decided to sit down and see if I could narrow down my cookbook collection into my Top 10. The resulting list somewhat resembles my collection and as I narrowed it down I found myself picking from the sections that I described above.

As I mentioned in my Top Kitchen Gear post, I am part of Amazon’s Associate program and earn a small commission on any purchases you make when clicking these links, it’s why they say (#EarnsCommissions) at the end.  It doesn’t cost you any more money but helps contribute to the hosting fees for the blog.

BONUS: The Flavor Thesaurus (#EarnsCommissions)

This really isn’t a cookbook, but it’s a really cool resource for identifying new food pairings.  You look up an ingredient and it will tell you what ingredients go with it. For example you probably know about bananas and peanut butter, but have you ever heard of pairing anise, chicken or egg with banana?  Tory got it for me as a Christmas gift and I pull it out when I try to find something new to do with an herb in the garden or an ingredient I have some extra of, or I am just trying to be creative.

10. Once Upon a Chef: Weeknight /Weekend (#EarnsCommissions)

I really like the Once Upon a Chef blog as I’ve found her recipes to be very trustworthy.  I actually had an opportunity to beta test the recipes for this book along with a friend of mine.  We requested different recipe groups so we could compare and preview more recipes. My mushroom & gruyere quiche from the Mini Quiche post was inspired by a recipe in this book.  Another favorite recipe is the Lasagna Soup which that same friend made me when I was recovering from surgery a few months back.  The recipes are approachable with most of the book devoted to “Weeknight” recipes with some “Weekend” recipes for when you want to take more time.

9. Damn Good Food (#EearnsCommissions)

This is the cookbook for the Minneapolis restaurant Hell’s Kitchen – not the Gordon Ramsay version.  I first went to Hell’s Kitchen on a mentoring lunch with this wonderful co-worker of mine who took me under her wing when I was just starting out in Audit.  We share a love for food so our mentoring meetings were always at a different restaurant within walking distance of the office.  We still go to lunch to this day – 17 years later, the only difference is that now sometimes I pick up the tab – in fact it’s probably my turn next time ;)!  My absolute favorite recipe is their Lemon Ricotta Hot-Cakes followed closely by the Mahnomin Porridge.  The book also contains the recipe for their self-proclaimed World-Famous peanut butter.  I haven’t made it but I’ve had it in the restaurant and purchased jars – it is amazing.

8. The Great Minnesota Cookie Book (#EarnsCommissions)

I have so many memories of cookies, especially Christmas cookies in large part because of the Cookie Queen, my Aunt ‘Thann who hosted an annual cookie party for her family – allowing each family to mix and match their own ice-cream bucket full of cookies.  So when my friend, who hosts an annual Cookie Exchange party told me about the Star Tribune cookie contest during the holiday season and I ended up stumbling on this cookbook that in originates from the winning recipes of this contest – I knew I needed to have it. It’s such a great example of that variety of Minnesota cookie recipes from the things people create, to those recipes that have been handed down or inspired by recipes from the “old country.”  Don’t ask me to pick a favorite – I haven’t tasted a bad cookie, as my dad likes to say “I’ve seen the ingredient list, how could it be bad.”

If you are someone who has to have the latest and greatest version of everything – they are publishing an updated version called The Ultimate Minnesota Cookie Book in November that promises to have 35 new recipes (#EarnsCommissions).

7. America’s Test Kitchen: Cooking School (#EarnsCommissions)

This cookbook is truly a cooking school with various sections and lessons like “How to Cook Meat”, “How to Make Yeast Breads and Pizzas”, “How to Cook Pasta”, “How to Cook Vegetables” and on and on.  Within each section are various lessons and tutorials with step by step pictures followed by a series of recipes to cook based on that lesson. I use this as a reference book and it contains the recipe for my Perfect Roast Beef which I make with plans to save the extra as sandwich meat.  Whenever my freezer gets empty of roast beef, I make another one for dinner. The cookbook can be used as a reference book for various types of cooking or just a recipe book bypassing the lessons. (Note: the link above is to the updated version as the one I have is out of print – same concept).

6. The Food Lab (#EarnsCommissions)

Another real science-y cookbook this one is written by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt who is a regular contributor for the Serious Eats Blog.  I fell in love with Kenji because of the way he approaches recipes like a scientist testing different methods for getting to the best result.  We recently read a post of his about the perfect meat mixture for a burger – you wouldn’t believe the testing he did! We use the method for making french fries from this cookbook every year for our New Year’s Eve chicken strip and fry feast, he shows pictures of his various tests and methods with a comparison picture using a McDonald’s french fry as the control fry!  This is the ultimate book for the food geek.

5. The New Ball Book of Canning (#EarnsCommissions)

I’ve mentioned my garden many, many times in this blog.  And one of my favorite hobbies, somewhat out of necessity and somewhat because the things I make myself are often better than store bought I end up doing a fair amount of canning in the fall.  Because canning is very science based – needing specific acid, processing time, etc.  I do often rely on tested recipes tweaking only those things like dried spices that I know are safe to change.  I have made a number of recipes from this book but love their recipe for tomato salsa, applesauce, peach salsa and corn salsa.

4. Seriously Good Salads (#EarnsCommissions)

This is one of my newer cookbooks, Derek got it for me for Christmas this past year and we’ve made quite a few recipes from it.  All of them winners so far. My favs include the Sticky Chicken Salad and a mash-up of the Rainbow Noodle Salad and Thai-Style Slaw with Peanut Dressing. They are salads that Tory would love – composed themed salads with a lot of activities going on but still very approachable.

3. Hello, My Name is Ice Cream (#EarnsCommissions)

For a science geek like me, this is the ultimate ice-cream book. I have several but most I use for flavor inspiration and leverage components of this book as I tweak the recipes. The 40ish pages are all about the science of making ice-cream including the ingredients and what they contribute and how they work together in the perfect ratio to make scoopable ice-cream with the right bite and no ice crystals.  Then the ice-cream chapters are divided up by type including Custard, Philadelphia, Sherbets and Frozen Yogurts.  Each chapter begins with a blank slate ice-cream that you can use to riff on your own flavors and the book also includes a section on the ratios of ice-cream if you really want to start from scratch.  It’s also approachable if you want to just follow the recipes. And as Tory wrote in the inscription when she gifted this to me for my birthday “This book was recommended by 2 of my food magazines – so it must be good! and it’s written by a Dana!”

2. Meathead (#EarnsCommissions)

We love smoking meat and through meticulous notes, research, and tweaking each time has really nailed both pulled pork and brisket.  We first discovered Meatheat on his website Amazingribs.com where we found a rub called Meathead’s Memphis Dust that we use on our pulled pork.  This has been affectionately renamed by my good friends as “Dana’s Butt Rub”.  When he published the cookbook it was a no-brainer to buy it. We love this cookbook for the recipes but also details on smoking techniques and science about smoking that he includes.  Explaining the stall, why you crutch or don’t, and how resting in a faux cambrio helps meat.  You can skip the science and leverage the recipes if you aren’t a geek like me.

1. Dinner Illustrated (#EarnsCommissions)

I have a lot of America’s Test Kitchen cookbooks, but this one is not only my favorite ATK cookbook but my favorite cookbook overall.  It’s all dinner recipes that can be made in less than an hour.  And the best part is that it has pictures of all of the main steps – a departure from ATK’s general style but one of my favorite features.  I haven’t had a bad recipe from this cookbook.  My favorites include Ginger Beef and Ramen Noodle Soup (has an amazing ginger-lime broth that my dad loved when I made it for him and I riffed on when I made my Ginger Chicken and Rice Soup) and Lemon-Thyme Roasted Chicken with Ratatouille (which is a sheet pan dinner!).  I’m planning to make Sichuan-Style Orange Beef with Sugar Snap Peas and Rice soon because of the abundance of snow peas in my garden!

 

What are your favorite cookbooks? I bet you all have some ideas that are not included in my 225!