I have a lot of cookbooks.
Some people in my family think I have too many.
My cookbook shelf is in the kitchen, right by the dinner table. A few nights ago while we were eating dinner the topic of my cookbook collection came up. Questions about all my cookbooks being necessary with so many recipes available online. Questions were asked about whether I actually use any or all of them. I defended my cookbooks and insisted I could not part with any of them.
But as I looked at my collection I realized that I had in fact not cooked from every single book. Some of them are sentimental but old and outdated. Some are from diets or cooking trends that I no longer follow. Some are for appliances that I have but don't use, techniques I wanted to learn but never pursued, and some books were far too ambitious for my skill level. Still, I do not want to part with any of them.
My cookbook shelves
And this basket of 'bookazines'
To prove that every single cookbook is necessary--and to justify buying more in the future--I decided to challenge myself to cook one recipe from every single cookbook I have.
This is no small task...I have about 200 cookbooks. However, I cook almost all of our meals at home and so far this year I have cooked over 190 recipes! I plan my meals a week at a time and can work recipes from each cookbook into my weekly menu. To keep things random I decided to go in alphabetical order by title, starting with the numerical titles. Since I have 30 Cooking Light Annual cookbooks I will be cooking from one about every 5 books or so to avoid cooking them all in a row.
Just a few Cooking Light Annual cookbooks
I will be making my first recipe soon from the '5 Ingredient 15 Minute' cookbook from Cooking Light.
Maybe I will even inspire someone else to cook though their collection of books or recipes!
Comments
Post a Comment