Anyone ever tried cooking through a whole cookbook?

sonastin

I really like this idea! I might discuss it with OH and see if he'll come on board with it. I'm thinking that Saturday night will be recipe book night and I'll start with the first one I pick up off the shelf and just work through from front to back, one week at a time, mains only. Then move onto the next book on the shelf and see what that brings. We eat it whether it sounds good or not, provided we have the equipment to make it and it doesn't include a one-use-only-expensive ingredient that would be a waste to purchase.

I know I'm safe suggesting this approach because the copy of Mrs Beeton's cook book that I inherited from my gran is currently residing on the coffee table - no way I'd risk picking that off the shelf!

lucylema

JackieO wrote: »

I did once blow up boiled eggs in the early part of my marriage but that's another story :):)

do tell

emg

I love this idea. In the Julie/Julia example she cooked everything didnt she? even the things she didnt fancy. I think it might be a good way to make me try foods that are outside of my comfort zone and to expand the number of things I cook.

Any

I never cook everything from a cookbook. Usually try the recipes I like the look off and then forget about it.. Some books that I received as gifts I haven't even done that with!!

But last year I got into as you say rut with cooking so I took my Jamie Oliver 30 minutes meals and gave it to my OH and said - right, close your eyes and just open the book anywhere. What ever it is, and I mean WHAT EVER it is, will be our tea on Wednesday...

And we did that every Wednesday (day I have most time for cooking)

Quite a few meals I wouldn't have normally picked out of the book are now on our usual menu...

jap200

emg wrote: »

I love this idea. In the Julie/Julia example she cooked everything didnt she? even the things she didnt fancy. I think it might be a good way to make me try foods that are outside of my comfort zone and to expand the number of things I cook.

Yes, that is exactly the idea! I am too far in my comfort zone at the moment so feel that pushing myself and the family to try some new things would be good for us in the long run.

I've come back from Tesco with the new Save with Jamie book and am about to sit down and have a good look through. I will also raise the idea with the rest of the family tonight and see what they think.

MrsRogers

As a self confessed cookery book addict who has a ridiculously large collection of cookery books and never cooks out of them..... Just reads the pages more like a novel then an instruction book

I think this is a great idea :j

But where to start????

HeadAboveWater

Book 1: page 1??

dandy-candy

Wow what a great challenge! I'd have to make sure I picked a book with no offal recipes

jap200

Most recipe books are arranged in sections for chicken, fish, beef etc so to avoid things getting boring I think a more random approach would work. That would also make it more economical to use up ingredients and also fit around what we were doing or what we fancied.

I would basically then just tick the recipes go off on a list as I went.

The big challenge I have is that only 2/5 of us eat red meat at the moment but I don't want to use a vegetarian cookbook - I need to think around that one.

danih

Thats a great idea !

I can't wait for jack's book to come out - not till February.

Have to see if I can motivate myself to try this challenge before then