I mentioned before that I have never been the best at following recipes as written. Not from lack of understanding or inability to follow directions, but more because I like to tweak recipes to cater to what I know my family likes or what we have on hand. So I’ve decided that I want to try cooking my way through a cookbook – all the way through, all recipes, no alterations (except maybe cooking times when necessary). Now my dilemma is which one to choose! Since my readers will probably be reading all about my mis-adventures, I figured who better to help me choose than you? As an added incentive to help me, let me introduce you to my taste testers.
Name – Cadence
Age – 2 (next week! *cry*)
Favorite Food – cheese
Dislikes – spicy food
Name – Aria
Age – 8 months
Favorite Food – anything with vadouvan curry
Dislikes – garlic (!)
I own a few books that I’m considering, but I’m also open to purchasing a new book if it looks good. Vote here (you can pick up to two) or scroll down for my initial thoughts on each of the books. This poll is closed! Poll activity:
start_date 26/08/2014 13:50:33
end_date 15/09/2014 23:59:59
Poll Results: Which cookbook should I cook my way through?
Ad Hoc at Home
Why? Thomas Keller. That’s why. I’ve only made a few things out of this book but they’ve all been delicious. I think this would be fun because it’s basically home cooking turned up a notch. However, I’m hesitant only because…
If there’s a lot of interest, though, I might consider purchasing a “working” copy. 
Cooking in the Moment
What I love about this one is that the concept of the book is cooking seasonally (ie. using in season produce only), so I can literally cook straight through from cover to cover (or if I start in September, middle to middle). The downside is that it would take me a whole year to cook through, and there are only about ten recipes per month.
Cook’s Illustrated
The scientist in me loves that Cook’s Illustrated/America’s Test Kitchen explains how they came about their final recipe for each dish, so I can see not only what they say to do but also what didn’t work and why. But then there’s the size of this book. It’s HUGE. All caps huge. It says it has 2,000 recipes. I believe it. Oh, and on top of that…
Noticing a trend?
How to Cook Everything
Nom Nom Paleo: Food for Humans
No pic of this one because I have the ebook version. I’ve only tried a couple of recipes from here so far, but Nom Nom is known for simple and delicious – right up my alley. A plus is that I haven’t really been cooking grains around here since we completed the Whole30, and this goes right along with that.
Vitamix: Savor
This one is a bit out of left field, but I thought it might be interesting to use my blender to prepare meals for a period of time. The downside is that there are obviously no main dishes involved, just sauces, dips, marinades, batters and the like.
Other
I’m open to purchasing a cookbook I don’t already own if there’s a lot of interest in it and it looks good to me. I thought about doing The Joy of Cooking because, you know…JOY, but I don’t own it. I also thought about The French Laundry cookbook, but again I don’t own it. I also have the feeling a lot of the ingredients would be hard to source. I’m also considering finding a good slow cooker book to cook through because how awesome would it be if I could cook everything in the slow cooker? Okay, maybe not completely awesome, but it would be very convenient.
So what do you think? What book should I choose?
*The Morimoto cookbook is pictured in the initial image, but I’ve already decided to take that one off the table. There are a bunch of ingredients that seem hard to source (hmm…blowfish skin…), and a good amount of the cookbook is dedicated to techniques – sashimi rosettes and paper thin daikon, anyone? It’s probably the most beautiful cookbook I’ve ever seen, though.
It’s also another one…
