July Cookbook Chat: The Essential New York Times Cookbook

It took author Amanda Hesser six years to compile the 1400 recipes that make up The Essential New York Times Cookbook: Classic Recipes for a New Century. She scoured the New York Times' food archive, all 150 years of it, tasting and testing thousands of recipes. The resulting compilation is a mesh of throw-back classics and modern twists. As someone who loves old-timey American recipes, I was thrilled to recipes like noodles romanoff and rum balls. But there are also plenty of recipes on-point with modern trends.

This book is a journey through history by way of food. Each section of the book begins with a timeline, highlighting important culinary events. Did you know the first raw-food restaurant opened in 1917, or that pressure cookers were popular in the 1920s? Aside from the timelines, there's a little introduction at the beginning of the book and a paragraph blurb before each recipe. It's the food, the recipes, that tell the historical story. And as someone who is interested in food, it's a very compelling story. I think this book will become a classic in the tradition of Rombauer and Child.

Betty Crocker Best Bread Machine Cookbook

Betty Crocker Best Bread Machine Cookbook, Wiley Publishing, 1999

I really can't say enough nice things about this cookbook. It's the reason I love my bread machine. Simply put, this book is a collection of nearly flawless and easily executed recipes. It's a must have for anyone with a bread machine.

Pretty much every thing you can imagine making in a bread machine is covered in this cookbook. There are plenty of loaves baked right in the machine, ranging from sweet to savory, but the recipes that really shine are the shaped loaves that use the machine just to create the dough. There are recipes for coffee cakes, cinnamon rolls, pizza crusts, focaccia, and more. I've personally tested about half the recipes in the book and have only had one flop. And unless you are the type who enjoys frustration, reliable recipes is essential to making friends with your bread machine. I've never had a loaf cave in. I don't think I'd like how that feels.

There's nothing particularly ground breaking or gourmet about these recipes. I appreciate the simplicity, but, as is clear from this blog, I'm not a gourmet-type chef. The book is divided into seven chapters: white-flour based loaves, whole grain loaves, fruit and veggie loaves, small loaves, rustic loaves/flatbreads, rolls/breadsticks, and sweet breads. All of the recipes use easily found ingredients. Unlike in many other bread machine cookbooks, none of the recipes call for added gluten (which can be hard to find).

A sampling of recipes included: Orange Cappuccino Bread, Pumpernickel Pecan Bread, Rosemary Apricot Bread, Greek Olive Focaccia, Curry Rice Dinner Rolls, and Chocolate Caramel Sticky Buns.

Hungry yet? In sum, this is a gold star cookbook, especially for newer bread machine owners.

Cocina De La Familia

Cocina de la Familia, by Marilyn Tausend with Miguel Ravago, Fireside, 1997.

I could eat Mexican-American food all day, every day. I grew up in a town that thrives on it, and, to me, a plate of enchiladas is more of a comfort food than a roast with mashed potatoes. And I'm always on the look out for good cookbooks that feature this cuisine I love.

Cocina de la Familia is the result of its author's travels across the country, exploring the food of modern Mexican-American families. What she discovered was a dedication to roots and tradition, with an American twist. Out of necessity, immigrant families changed their recipes to accommodate what's available in American supermarkets. Pork lard becomes crisco, stronger chilies are sacrificed for the more ubiquitous jalapeno. Most of the recipes in the book have substitution recommendations, making it a good option for those without access to more authentic ingredients. Cocina de la Familia is not a well-known cookbook, but I love it, and I highly recommend it.

Casual Suppers

This is one of the many books in my ever-expanding cookbook collection, and I aim to review and catalog them all, so hold on to your chair. As I may have mentioned before, my mom runs a used book fair, something I hope to get involved with this spring. One of the perks of this is a sneak peak access to budget cookbooks. I believe this book came from the fair, but I've had it for several years and am iffy about its origins.

No longer in print, the copyright on this is 1996. You have to consider that food does not age at the same pace as everything else. Like there are dog and cat years, there are food years. So while a mere 15 years old in our time, this cookbook is positively retro in the food world. There's a heavy focus on casseroles, and several of the recipes call for an ingredient called "spaghetti sauce mix," whatever that is. There is a vegetarian section, a nice option, but several of those recipes include meat or poultry stock. Maybe vegetarianism was different all the way back in the Clinton era, who knows.

Even with the negatives, I really enjoy this cookbook. It doesn't reinvent the wheel, but the recipes I've tried are pretty tasty, and even tastier after I give them an update. This book helped inspire my "Oodles Noodles Casserole" recipe (which I hope to have up on site in the coming weeks). There's something very comforting about the simple, no fuss food in cookbooks like this. Sometimes it's nice to put dinner on the table without worrying about it being nutritionally complete or locally sourced or "omg, is this meal contributing to the obesity epidemic?" When that's the case, this book is here for you. And it's a keeper for me.