Monday Listicles, the food edition.

Hello friends, it’s Monday Listicle time! This week Stasha’s assignment is pure torture for me, as I have to do another no carb, no sugar, my meals are so boring and I’m starving all the time week. Thank god my personal trainer values his life and only makes me do this for a week at a time! But since this was Bridget’s idea, I couldn’t very well ignore it, although I was tempted since she’s in Hawaii on vacation and I’m green with envy! But no one deserves a vacation more than Bridget and her husband so I’m putting my envy aside. My love and loyalty to her notwithstanding, I couldn’t very well make myself sit here and think about all the lovely things I want to eat but can’t… so I decided on another angle. I like to cook, I hate the daily drudgery of having to come up with what’s for dinner, but once I know what I’m doing I enjoy the process, and baking and decorating relax me into a very zen state. So, I figured, why not share my ten favorite cookbooks, I’m addressing the food category while not having to actually think about specific foods, because honestly, I’m starving, and I know you don’t want to torture me, reading everyone’s posts will be torture enough!!

My ten favorite cookbooks:

1. The Joy of Cooking – this is my absolute go to recipe book for everything, if you only have room in your life for one cookbook this is the one you should have.

2. Nourishing Traditions – this is the first “real food” cookbook I bought and it really changed my outlook on a lot of things, it’s easy to follow and very informative.

3. The Best Casserole Cookbook Ever – I love casseroles, cause they’re easy and comforting and many of them are make ahead and after dinner I don’t have to wash a hundred pots.

4. The Lost Art of Real Cooking – this book is lovely to read, the two authors each write their own recipes in two completely different styles. It’s funny, and entertaining and the recipes are wonderful.

5. Put ‘em up – I have a vegetable garden, which is great, but it also means that when the eggplants or the zucchini or the tomatoes are in that’s all we eat for a month. Canning and other preserving methods have really saved my sanity, cause after eating string beans every day for two weeks straight you kind of want to kill yourself.

6. Forgotten Skills of Cooking – this book does what it says in the title, if you want to learn how to debone a duck, for example, you either need this book here or Julia Child’s Mastering the art of French cooking. Not that I’ve ever deboned a duck, but should I need to, I’m totally covered.

7. Canning for a New Generation: A seasonal guide to filling the modern pantry – see number 5.

8. Il Talismano della Felicità – this is my favorite Italian cookbook. Not many people in Italy have it nowadays, but my grandma used it, my aunt used it, my mom uses it…. It’s a bit old fashioned, and has no pictures, but just like the Joy of Cooking it’s one of those must have books.

9. Once-a-Month Cooking – this book I just bought, so I haven’t tried it out yet, but it looks fab, and honestly cooking only once a month and then just defrosting and making maybe a side or salad is my dream of kitchen utopia.

10. The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook – this book I haven’t yet bought, mainly because the Husband has threatened to kick me out of the house if I buy one more cookbook. But I love the smitten kitchen blog, and the author Deb Perelman, her pictures are gorgeous and her food is mouthwateringly good, and she really tries to simplify her recipes so you don’t make a gigantic mess in the kitchen, what more can we ask for?!

So what are your favorite foods (or cookbooks, or any other food related thing, in fact!)?