Part of the Cookbook Collection

After a slow start to my meal planning for the holidays, I got into the groove with the Breakfast Cups. I cooked many of my favorite comfort foods over the past few days. Some of the highlights have been Almond Bacon Cheese Dip, Dill Dip, Orzo with Roasted Vegetables, and my family’s sausage breakfast casserole.

Some of my recipes are family recipes, but many come from key cookbooks that anchor my cookbook library. Below is a list of my most used cookbooks along with the names of the best recipes (in my opinion) from those cookbooks. If you click each cookbook name below, it is linked to an Amazon listing.

What cookbooks do you have that you cannot live without?

The Artful Table: Great Food from the Dallas Museum of Art League (This is the best cookbook I own. Everything turns out well.)

• Pork Tenderloin with Red Onion Confit
• Heavenly Potatoes
• Country-Fried Chicken Salad (use store bought chicken tenders)
• Picadillo Sarita

You can tell which cookbooks are my favorites by the Post-it notes and other scraps of paper sticking out of the top to mark good recipes.

The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook

• Sun-Dried Tomato Dip
• Turkey Tea Sandwiches
• Banana Crunch Muffins

Barefoot Contessa Parties

• Pasta, Pesto, and Peas
• Orzo with Roasted Vegetables
• Spinach Gratin
• Chicken Chili

Colorado Collage

• Carrot Basmati Rice Pilaf
• Ginger Chicken Kabobs
• Telluride Tortellini with Chicken

Creme de Colorado

• Pasta with Broccoli

Company’s Coming (out of print– available used)

• Steak Soup

Beyond Parsley

• Spaghetti Pie
• Artichoke Sausage Soup
• Sugared Bacon

Above and Beyond Parsley

• Pacific Rim Tenderloin

I find old party notes in many of my favorite cookbooks. I never throw the notes away, so I can go back and recycle good ideas I may forget.

Southern Living Easy Entertaining

• Savory Petit Fours (tea sandwiches)
• Twice-Baked Potato Casserole

Family Cookbook (Not for sale at the present time)

• A few years ago I compiled all of our traditional family recipes into a Shutterfly album with family photos. My dad is famous for kitchen pictures. These are the pictures of people caught mid-bite, or people standing in their sweat pants on a holiday morning stirring a pot of some kind (see photo below). There is usually one group photo at the table during a large gathering too. These were the photos I used to “enhance” the family cookbook. I use my family cookbook all of the time. I have all of my favorite recipes in one location and do not have to hunt through every loose piece of paper and recipe card box I own to remember how to make our family’s Christmas Eve egg nog. This makes a great birthday gift, Christmas gift, or Mother’s/Father’s Day gift.

Check me out making mashed potatoes.
Thanksgiving 2006