Cooking Challenge - try ONE new recipe from your (many?) cookbooks!

Cooking Discussions Cooking, Cookbooks, Ingredients
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@Aubergine asked - so why not? Yeah, there are some older threads out there, but lots of cookbooks have been created since 2015, 2020, and 2021, so maybe there are those of us who like to cook who want to pull out a cookbook or two and check out recipes they may have bookmarked and never made.

I know myself I’ve got about 30-40 cookbooks that just sit on the shelves, because I rarely cook from them OR I just go to this little thing call the Internet. :wink: Top Chef cookbooks, seafood cookbooks, local farm stand cookbooks, vegetarian cookbooks. C’mon, Linda - pull out a book and find something you want to make!

:::Writing myself a note to pull out some cookbooks tonight and find something I want to make with the summer’s bounty!:::

**ETA: after some discussion downthread, we’re looking to keep this open-ended. So we’re including physical cookbooks, online cookbooks (such as Kindle downloads), or a subscription to a food/cooking section in a newspaper (like the NYT).

Timeframe is also open - originally I thought maybe through the summer, but knowing that many are on vacation, perhaps going into the fall and winter, when more people might be cooking and be looking to entertain the idea of a new recipe.

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Hey now! As if I don’t already feel guilty about having totally failed at my attempt to try even one new recipe PER WEEK from my NYT recipe box :smiley:

I feel called out — but enough about me :wink:

Do online recipes count at all or does it have to be a printed, physical book? Which I totally own. No, really. Pinkie swear!

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Hmmm…since this is my challenge (which I know I’m going to fail miserably but I’ll try!), Imagonna say printed cookbook - unless you have it online on your Kindle (Oooh! Just remembered I have several cookbooks on my Kindle!)

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Nah, that’s a-ok. I do have a shelf of cookbooks. Will see how motivated I am :wink:

Till then — keep calm and carry on.

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Also… is there a time frame for this challenge? Is it just today? Before we die?

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Well, dammit. Hadn’t thought about a time frame. Two choices - though September 30th to get us through the rest of the summer, OR open-ended to see if anyone responds after that. :woman_shrugging:

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Oooh! That’s my bday :slight_smile:

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A proposal for consideration: the challenge is to cook from a resource you already own, be it a physical cookbook, an electronic cookbook, or something you subscribe to like NYT.

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That might just get me back on track for my NY resolution :smiley:

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Well, I don’t know. According to my EYB accounts, I only have 371 cookbooks, so…
I have set a personal challenge to get rid of at least 71, you know, to get it down to a nice low round number.

So while I try to choose 71 not to keep, I can very easily find new recipes I have intended to cook for a while (!) in cookbooks I want to keep. The 71 “out” is a preliminary goal. More to come, I hope [springs eternal].

I plan to donate to More Than Words in Boston and Waltham, which serves disadvantaged young adults. If any HO would be interested in accepting free cookbooks, I can keep a deaccession list to be perused.

Thanks for the nudge, Linda!

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I love this idea for a thread. I hope to be all over it. My vote would be “open-ended”.

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I’m fine with this as long as recipes that are subscription that some of us might not be able to access can be copied (ingredients only) with instructions paraphrased.

Same with physical and electronic cookbooks. If you find the recipe posted online, I don’t see any issue with linking it.

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Sorry, maybe I misunderstood what was being proposed in this thread. I thought the challenge was for us to each try a new recipe from one of our existing cookbooks (or other existing recipe sources)… in other words, you cook from your stash and I cook from mine. I was suggesting an expanded definition of “cookbook” to cover electronic resources we each might have. I didn’t think the ideas was that we would all cook from the same source, because as you’ve pointed out, we don’t all have the same ones.

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^^^ this is what @LindaWhit is proposing.

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That’s exactly what I meant. I can see about 15-20 cooks on the bottom shelf of my coffee table and in my bookcase, and I rarely open them. This challenge, for ME, is to browse through them, find something that entices me, and make it.

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I pulled out my Silver Palate Cookbook … I’m very attached because I love the format, very white paper, easy to read, short ingredient list. First copyright is 1979.
I’ve only made about 4 recipes over the years, all excellent.

The famous Chicken Marbella
Bread Pudding with Whiskey Sauce
Chicken Salad with Tarragon

The 4th? For years I’ve been trying to locate a recipe I made years ago … I thought it was Blackberry Ice Cream. I knew it used Crème de Cassis. Paging through the book just now, there it is: Blackberry Ice!!! When I pick up blackberries at the farmers market, I’ll make it. It will be easier now since I have a good Moulinex food mill. It’s intense, delicious.

I also noticed how many recipes use Crème Fraiche, probably not easy to find way back then.

So I’ve selected some new to me recipes to try!

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I’ve always wanted to try to make Sorrel Soup, but where to find sorrel?

Farmers Market? Available in summertime?

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Homemade nutter butter cookies are on my list.

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I am a charter member of Eat Your Books, so I don’t know exactly what non members can see. I think you can see a lot without being a member, but I can’t verify that. I am not expert but they answer email questions quickly.

Eatyourbooks.com

I use Eat Your Books several times a week. To find recipes that include various combinations of ingredients, such as recently, sorrel, tarragon and goat cheese. Searching for creme fraiche specifically, also possible as many other ingredients. Online recipes, recipes in cookbooks, etc. Or search for recipes by particular authors or in specific cookbooks and specific ingredients. You can also “label” recipes using any label you specify.

As for where to find sorrel? I live in Boston and have only reliably found in recent past years in local farmers markets in the early and late spring. Warmer climates will have it earlier. Also directly from area farms when visiting their on site farm stores.

I’ve never seen it in Boston area food stores like Whole Foods. It’s easily grown in my yard while not doing well at all in the heat.

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why not keep it open-ended? While I have the best of intentions, there’s a huge amount going on for my family.

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