Nina's Cookbook Reviews and Tips!

Where to even start?! Cookbooks may be my favorite (and only) collection I have. My mother-in-law is the absolute best gift-giver on the planet, and she has been buying me cookbooks since I started cooking for myself at the beginning of college. Obviously I loved them so much that I started buying new ones for myself and for friends as gifts!

Since I have roughly 30 books, and this would be way to long to discuss all of them, I am only going to highlight a few. However, I'll post a link to all of them at the bottom.

My first love was definitely Skinnytaste Fast and Slow. It taught me to cook when I was an all-over-the-place college student. When I needed a 15 minute healthy meal, it was in there. When I needed a slow-cooker meal that could be there for me after a full day of class, it was in there. When I was worried about "the freshman fifteen" (and let's be honest, this concern stayed with me all the way through being a graduate student), the book was full of healthful recipes that were not just raw salads. It is REAL food that tastes INCREDIBLE, typically with very few ingredients. Just in general, I can't recommend this specific book of hers enough.

Because of my terrific experience with her Fast and Slow book, I also purchased her original cookbook and her newly released (at the time) Skinnytaste One & Done. The original one is somehow my least used cookbook ever. I think it was really meant to be for people who do not know how to cook at all (in which case definitely check it out, very fast and easy stuff in here), but I grew up in a cooking household so many of the recipes didn't quite peak my interest. On the other hand, One & Done gets 50% of my cookbook attention in the fall and winter months. Sheet pan recipes, instant pot recipes, slow cooker recipes galore! The whole premise of this one is that you only need "one" method/pan/pot of cooking and you're done.

Fast-forward to my newest obsession that I am confident is here to stay: The Dude Diet Dinnertime. This cookbook exactly covers all my actual "diet" interests. I don't have any allergy restrictions or foods that I have eliminated from my everyday life, I just try to eat well. This book is full of recipes that taste great and are for crowd-pleasing, well-balanced meals. Another huge pro for me is that this book is a *dinnertime* recipe book, so all the recipes are dinners (my primary interest), rather than half being breakfasts or lunches. She does also have The Dude Diet (original), that I don't own but I am certain I will very soon. :)

Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat actually taught me the science behind cooking. I received this book as a gift from my wedding shower hostesses, so the front page is covered in sweet notes from dozens of incredible women in my life. I dove right in, knowing it was a NY Times bestseller, and it was not at all what I thought. It felt more like reading a very funny, witty, casual textbook. I was really learning about why cooks do certain things, and what things I should be doing that I wasn't. There are a few recipes at the end, but I wouldn't really consider this a recipe book. If you want a high level overview of the book, watch the docu-series on Netflix! It is four episodes, and each one covers a topic in the title. So informative, and really did change the way I cook.

Half Baked Harvest (original) really has some incredible dishes. I wouldn't say they are always the healthiest, but the flavor is very good. Same with her newer book called Half Baked Harvest Super Simple, which has more of a One & Done vibe about being easy, minimal clean up, minimal ingredients. I do tend to use her blog more than I use her books though when I am looking for her "style" of recipe.

Lastly, one of my newer favorites has been The Defined Dish. This book is Whole30 friendly and endorsed, so almost every recipe uses ingredients that are substitutes for people on the Whole30 diet. Over the course of building up my kitchen essentials I happen to have pretty much every substitute out there, however I would say it's pricey to buy it all at once. On a recipe quality note - she has amazing recipes that I feel good eating because they are so clean. Her Asian recipes specifically are really wow! Some of my go-to Asian dinners are out of this book.

SOME COOKBOOK TIPS

#1 - Walker and I write in every cookbook we own. This is for a few reasons, but the most important is that I write all of the modifications I made or would make for when I return to the recipe the next time! We write recipe "ratings" on a scale of 1 - 10, and if anyone is eating with us we write their rating too! I like to jot the date we made it as well, more in a fun memory book type of way, and any fun memory if it was special. We also have a dinner party guest book that we bought when we moved to Colorado, and we write the "menu" of the dinner party and the guests that came all sign! It's one of the most special things we own.

#2 - Spend 10 minutes just flipping through your cookbook and dog-ear a few that look good to you! Heck, commit to making one or two of those this week. This is exactly how I really learned how to cook, and now this is what I do every. single. Sunday. I've made every cuisine in my own kitchen because of these treasure chests put together by talented recipe creators! It's seriously so fun.

#3 - Cookbooks make fantastic birthday presents for friends because they are usually in the $20-$30 range (some of the ones below are even less) and they last forever. Personalize it by signing the inside cover instead of buying a card!

#4 - There are so many cookbooks out there, I typically don't buy any on a whim. I have had them recommended to me, or I follow that particular recipe creator on social media platforms to get a better idea of their cooking style. You likely won't cook from a book you haven't heard of before!

Full disclosure, I really do try to rotate through many of my cookbooks (not just the ones above)! I like to cook and try new things, and wouldn't say I have a real rotating list of recipes. If I did though, they most likely would come from the books I mentioned. Most of the books I have are linked below!