[Zoom39]

Never was a cook UNTIL...

1) My newest favorite cooking reference is a Taste of Home magazine that I picked up at Food City the other day called "BUSY FAMILY RECIPES" and includes 164 speedy recipes for the family. This is one of their new editions that is completely full recipes from page one to the end. I've already made 4 dishes: tilapia, mexican lasagna, shrimp scampi, and chicken salad and I'M TELLING YOU it is EASY. I've spent VERY LITTLE TIME TO COOK - few ingredients, good tasting food, so don't walk to the store to buy this magazine, RUN to get it. Plus, the kids have miraculously eaten all of the dishes prepared.

2) Favorite cook book given several years ago.
"The Good Housekeeping - Step by Step Cookbook" - 1000 recipes with PHOTOS - YES!
Review: This is a smart and efficient book. A variety of meals that are easy to fix, although you do get the occasional recipe that requires an extra trip to the store for an ingredient. The super upside of this book is that it has a easy-to-read resource area that includes a bunch of stuff like storage, measurements, using the right knives, pairing wine with foods, table etiquette, cooking basics, food pyramids, you name it PLUS I've made some excellent dishes over the years that are keepers like paella (YES - it's not as tough as you think it is to cook).

3) allrecipes.com (just discovered and mastered the TIRAMISU MARTINI...enough said)

What are you favorite cook book resources?

[Toonish]

I am a fan of kraftfoods.com

Light and Easy magazine (by the same people who put out Taste of Home)

but my all time favorite cookbook is the 1962 Betty Crocker Cookbook my mom passed down to me when I left home. Sure it's dated, the illustrations have that strange brown and fluorescent hue that things printed in the 60s seem to take on making the food look unappetizing... but it has all my mom's notes in it from when she was trying to learn to cook (which is when she originally bought it). And it has a lot of the recipes my family grew to love.

[aerobaby]

I love the Better Home and Gardens Cook Books!! My mom had my grandmother, and than she had one of her own, I than got them when my mom passed away and was given a new one so I have three all about 20 years apart!! I love the basic recipes they have in them and the notes my mom put in the margins and on the back page.

I really don't use cook books though unless it is a very specific recipe, I usually wing it or create my own.