For Christmas i received Scandinavian from Scratch. Bookmarked a lot of recipes but i think we need a little break except for baking our daily bread.
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I had expressed an nterest in Yotam Ottolenghi. My daughter and son-in-law gave me Plenty. I have read it cover to cover and plan to cook every single thing in there. What a marvelous cookbook (this from one who reads cookbooks but rarely uses them).
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Plenty is a good one!
(Iirc theres a recipe for roasted carrots with onions and yogurt in that one that I had going on repeat for a while.)
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I’ll have to see if the dish you’re talking about is in there to try out. I know I love a sautéed dish with carrots and chard and yogurt from Plenty. It made me appreciate caraway seeds.
In Plenty More there’s a roasted carrot dish with tahini and yogurt that I liked but wasn’t as bowled over as a lot of people were. And a roasted carrot and mung bean salad with I think feta.
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It’s the Moroccan Carrot Salad, but the first time I had it the carrots were roasted, not boiled, and I liked the char, so I stuck with that change.
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Ah, I tried that one, but ultimately prefer the carrot salad from Jerusalem.
If you like Plenty you should also consider buying Plenty More and Flavor as they similar approaches. His other books are also very good but have different focus
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Im fine with sitting down to read - I am working at my kitchen table now - but the fact they do not fit upright on very liberally sized and built shelves peeves me. Stacking is much less efficient and I am seeing that my large books being stored spine up, like Wolfert’s Morocco, are getting warped. A couple of my Ottolenghis are falling apart too, despite their fancy bindings. Are these books meant for collecting or use?
There are variations on the major themes.
For fried chicken and biscuits
For meatloaf and mashed potatoes
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I think the oversized cookbooks certainly have useable to very good recipes, but there’s a focus on food photography that is definitely “coffee table book”.
I’m late to seeing your posts, so you may have explored this one, but it’s worth a look through just for the delightful marginalia, for example, on the page with Edna Lewis’s chocolate soufflé:
Edna [Lewis] supported herself by doing everything from reproducing Dior gowns from a magazine photo to creating clothes for Bonwit Teller’s Christmas windows (including one outfit with 500 hand-sewn peacock feathers). One morning, she “whipped up clothes — real whory clothes — for a young model, real cute, for the cover of True Story magazine.” It turned out to be Marilyn Monroe.
I had the book for quite a while before baking anything from it save the coffee coffee cake with espresso glaze, which I discovered because it was reprinted in Gourmet Today (but I made it as a marble cake in a 9-inch springform rather than layered in a bundt pan). It was BCOTM on Chowhound back in 2017, and I sure wish I could refer you to that thread! I have also made and enjoyed the jam cake with burnt sugar glaze (recommend using a boldly flavored jam) and the split level lime chiffon pie.
Again, you may have bit the bullet on a Maida Heater book by now. Happiness Is Baking is a smaller book than her larger collections, but it’s kind of a greatest hits volume, so a good place to start with her recipes. I can highly recommend the blueberry crumb cake (reprinted or adapted lots of places online), lemon bread pudding (I used my standard lemon curd recipe from Alice Medrich in a half recipe in place of Heatter’s and halved the sugar in the custard, and noted that I’d increase the curd next time), and coffee buttercrunch pie (quite rich, but delicious).
For a fruit-centric book, you can’t go wrong with Rustic Fruit Desserts. This small book packs in a lot of delicious recipes in the homey style you tend to, and again I wish I could refer you to the old BCOTM thread from CH! It’s arranged seasonally, and while some of the seasonality doesn’t quite jibe with mine in Northern California, the authors, like you, are based in the PNW.
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Thank you so much for posting your thoughts!
Classic Home Desserts by Richard Sax: Has been on the top of my reading pile since received, but was back-burnered over the holidays. Looking forward to perusing it in the coming months.
Maida Heatter: Have not selected a volume yet, but will take another look at Happiness is Baking.
Rustic Fruit Desserts: I have this one, primarily due to it’s popularity on CH. I overlooked cooking from it last fruit season, but have made it a priority for this year.
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The Violet Bakery Cookbook.
I’ve had a scone recipe in my collection from the Violet Bakery that I like quite a bit. At the time, it didn’t register that there was an entire cookbook from Claire Ptak until I recently stumbled across another reference in my reading.
I found a good-condition used copy, but you can read the reviews on Amazon.
Anyone have this book or have any Violet Bakery favorites?
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It was extremely popular when it got released and I remember it getting blogged about a lot. The blondies and the rye brownies are two of the most popular recipes.
I believe people mentioned issues with the editing of some recipes.
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OK - thanks for that! I’ll be cautious when proceeding. 
We’re ice-and-snowed in again today, but the mailman finally got through 
. This will make for a pleasant afternoon reading.
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We are nominating our February COTM now. Please join us!
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Enjoy! I bought a few of her books used, and enjoy reading them, though I end up looking at recipes online.
I have a birthday this year (duh), and here’s what’s coming:
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