Youngest daughter moved out of the house in June, but she still comes home for most of her meals. She’s never shown much interest in cooking and I was surprised when her Christmas list included a request for a good cookbook. Youngest son decided that he’d get this for her, so I showed him my Betty Crocker Cookbook and my Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook, suggested he buy either one of those, and sent him down to the local bookstore.He came home with The Taste of Home Cookbook instead. What can I say? The boy’s a genius. (You should see the coffee grinder he got me!)
If you’ve paid any attention to the recipes I’ve posted here, you know I’m partial to recipes from Taste of Home magazine. They come from the kind of down-home style cooking I grew up with, and the ingredients tend to be common, everyday things you probably already have in your fridge, freezer, or cupboard. But best of all, everything is yummy.
When youngest daughter unwrapped her cookbook and I saw what it was, I knew the recipes would be good. But this recipe book is much more than a collection of good recipes. It’s the sort of cookbook that’s perfect for a novice cook, because it includes simple step-by-step instruction, with photos, for just about anything an inexperienced cook might want to know, like how to carve the various cuts of meats and how to to prepare the different varieties of potatoes, for instance. I could go on about all the goodies included (conversion charts, substitution charts, detailed nutritional information), but let’s just say that any information you need for choosing or preparing food can probably be found somewhere in The Taste of Home Cookbook.
And it’s all put together in a handy ring-bound format similar to the famous Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook: hard back, tabbed, with five rings. As an added (and very handy!) bonus, there are two heavy clear plastic pages for protecting the paper pages you are using from your cooking smudges or splatter. There’s what’s called the Entertaining CD included as well, but I haven’t seen it, so I can’t tell you whether that extra is a true bonus.
This cookbook would be perfect for a wedding shower or housewarming gift, but it’d be a mistake to think it only suitable for beginners. I’m an experienced cook, and it’s been a while since I’ve had so much fun thumbing through a new cookbook, so you might want to consider The Taste of Home Cookbook when Grandma’s birthday rolls around, too.