Lifestyle: A bunch of cookbooks

 Have you ever actually taken a gander at a cookbook?

No, I mean Really taken a look? From the Acknowledgement page to the personal story of the book's author, and not just skim through the recipes to find out that vaguely looks like something you could make?

To be perfectly transparent this log was going to be about how in the current climate of the world baking bread is the gateway to becoming a home pastry chef. However, as I was gathering ingredients to set up for a photoshoot, I looked at the entire rack of cookbooks I had amassed and it struck me. I had only ever pulled baking recipes from two of them.

Nevermind the fact I went on to prepare the items for my photoshoot, forget the photoshoot and bake like it was a normal week. It was seriously on my mind how I had never cracked open my Campbell's Slow Cooker Recipes but I pulled quite a few from The Muffin lady. Of course, this comes down to what cooking methods and ingredients you tend to have or use around the house. One book can become more applicable and influential than another.

My current top 3 used Cookbooks.

For example, I primarily bake so in terms of relevancy I will always gravitate to baking oriented recipes within the cookbooks. This can be desserts or meals using the baking method. The husband and I are relatively simple people when it comes to food so we'll more often than not prefer recipes that don't have a million different moving parts or too many steps before the actual cooking process. 

This of course leads to the question, Why do you have so many cookbooks then? 

When we were moving they just happen to be there and at the time I figured I would get a ton of use out of them once we started really shopping and supplying for ourselves. Which to be fair I think is always the thought process when people purchase a cookbook for the first time or wind up with one.  You're like "Oh great! I don't have to think about what to cook. I can just open this book and head empty only cook this for the night."

In actuality, you'll probably pull one or two recipes from time-to-time then forget the book exists. Be it either you committed the recipes you liked to memory or your eating/cooking habits have changed. On the opposite end of the spectrum and based on a google search I did asking what percentage of a cookbook is actually used in an average household? Turns out some people only use about 1 to 1 percent of the actual cookbook and even then it is only to grab inspiration for a meal.

My stack of loose recipes and cookbooks to wade through. 
Send help!

Color me shocked that the percentage was so low with how hyped up celebrity cookbooks and at-home cooks can be sometimes. Maybe it's because times have changed since cookbooks were a big thing? Maybe we just find ourselves eating out more? On the rare occasion we don't eat out we just slap something together and call it a meal for the night. There is also the power of google wherein if a meal idea crosses your mind you just type in a few letters into your search bar and pull up not just recipes but videos and detailed guides.

While the internet has made things more convenient in terms of pulling exactly what you need when you need it, I have found cookbooks do contain information in them that you might not know otherwise. Like in Ten Dollar Dinners I learned that grocery stores have something called a loss leader; meat that once a week stores will put on sale for about 50 to 75 percent off the normal price in order to get people into stores. 

Information such as that is invaluable and without reading through that cookbook I would have never known how to spot such great deals on meat. It pays to actually read some of that blocky text before the recipes because it can contain a lot of shortcuts and helpful tips you can incorporate into your everyday. 

Often times when we google a recipe and there's this long winded history about how the author discovered or used the recipe before getting to the actual recipe, we let out a frustrated sigh and just wanna get cooking but just like with cookbooks they could contain some very good information or tips to improve our techniques that much more. However, I feel because of the online format it's easy to forget/ignore that and skip straight to what you were looking for.

Then that turns into you probably missing the mark on the recipe in question and feeling like the recipe was a flop. Not always the case of course. 

Anyway, I looked at all these cookbooks around me and decided I was going to dedicate myself to pulling recipes that I could use or in some cases draw inspiration from and compile them into an organized google doc that I could print off, laminate, and store in a binder. There's no telling how long it could take since I have a bunch of books and recipes are long enough to read as is. The goal though is to eventually not need to refer to the books and I can donate them onto someone else or a library- what have you- for someone else to make use of. 

No doubt there will be books I could skip entirely but not without first skimming for tips. Those I can throw into a separate doc and probably share with fellow cooking enthusiasts. 

All this was just a long way of me saying give those cookbooks you might have hanging another look when you're in a cooking mood instead of jumping right onto google. There could be some real big inspiration or tips you never noticed before that could improve the quality of life a little or your dishes by just a smidge. This pending you even own cookbooks in this day and age still. 

Now if you'll excuse me I have about 13 cookbooks (excluding pamphlets and loose recipe cards) to scan through and compile their recipes into a list.

What have I just done to myself!?

Books mentioned in this post:

Ten Dollar Dinners: https://www.amazon.com/Ten-Dollar-Dinners-Recipes-Elevate/dp/0307985148

The Muffin lady: https://www.amazon.com/Muffin-Lady-Muffins-Cupcakes-Quickbreads/dp/0060392460

Campbell's Slow Cooker Recipes: https://www.amazon.com/Campbells-Recipes-Editors-Publications-International/dp/1412728703