Kitchen Essentials: Cookbooks

One of my readers ("insomniac") has suggested that I post ideas on setting up a kitchen. I am starting a new series that I'll call "Kitchen Essentials."

Today's topic is Cookbooks.

In my opinion, a beginner-medium-level home cook only needs two cookbooks:

Joy of Cooking

and

How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman.

(Vegetarians may prefer How to Cook Everything Vegetarian.)

With these two books, you'll have all the basic knowledge: how to bake, how to cook vegetables, meats, poultry-- everything the home cook needs.

I also keep a binder of recipes that I've printed from www.allrecipes.com and other blogs. I'll shuffle through them if I am looking for inspiration. I also like allrecipes for its ingredient search-- you can either search for a recipe incorporating items you have on-hand, or you can search for a recipe that omits an item that's not tasty to you.

So-- there you go!

Next time: Kitchen Essentials: Knives