Craig's Recipes

Craig's cookbook recommendations

This is a list of fairly basic cookbooks that I recommend for everyone who likes to cook or wants to learn to cook.

Recommendations:

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  Betty Crocker's Cookbook by the Betty Crocker Editors. I have the 1980 Third printing edition, Copyright 1978, 1969. This book has all the basics in it. If you want to know how long to boil corn, or how to cook a hunk of meat, or how to make a salad, this book has the instructions. The recipes tend to be tried and true, down home standards. Since this edition is no longer in print I recommend the current version: Betty Crocker Cookbook: Everything You Need to Know to Cook Today, New Tenth Edition.  

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  Betty Crocker's International Cookbook by Betty Crocker. This book has lots of great recipes in it, including the Szechwan Chicken recipe and the Cream of Mushroom soup recipe I have on my recipes page. I've tried many of the recipes in this book, and, in general, I like them. I should probably put a few more of them here. My edition is the 1980 hardcover edition, which is now out of print. My copy of this one is falling apart, and I have difficulty keeping all the pages in order in it.  

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  The Frugal Gourmet by Jeff Smith. This is one of my favorite cookbooks because Jeff Smith cooks much like I do, and seems to have the same tastes in food. I'm on my second copy of this book, I gave my first copy to my mother. This cookbook has great tasting recipes, often with interesting stories about where the recipes were obtained, or the history of the dish. The copy I have now is the 1984 edition, and was autographed by Jeff Smith in 1989. I use this book so much that it's paper cover is quite worn and torn on the edges and the binding is starting to go. Alas, this book is out of print.  

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  The New York Times Cook Book by craig Claiborne. I have a version of this book that I purchased back in 1979, and they've made some changes, additions, and deletions since then. The first printing of this book was in 1961. I like it because it has an interesting recipe for just about everything. If this book doesn't have something, then my next recommendation is bound to have it.  

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  Joy of Cooking by Irma S. Rombauer, et al. My copy is the 1975 edition. This one pretty much has a basic recipe for everything. If you know what you want to make and just need a recipe, this book or the NYT cookbook above will have a recipe for you.  It is actually rare that I use this cookbook since I can just search for any recipe on the Internet.  

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I have lots of other cookbooks, but these that I've recommended here are the ones I use the most. Many of the cookbooks in my collection were given to me by my mother (Thanks Mom!), who has hundreds, if not thousands, of cookbooks and recipe collections.

Other Interesting Recipes

Here is a link to some low fat, complex carbohydrate recipes, although I think they need more protein. Most of these seem to have an Indian (from India) style: Low Fat, Complex Carbohydrate recipes [drmirkin.com]

And here is a link to a book of high fat, high carbohydrate, high calorie, delicious recipes: Eat Dangerously [amazon.com]. The publishers site for this book [eatdangerously.com] has some sample recipes.