My Cookbook Shelf

So this past month I have been very busy re-organizing and spring cleaning.  I have wanted to move my cookbooks closer to my computer work station for awhile now, this week I finally finished.  Now I have my recipes and cookbooks close by, for meal planning, and researching different recipes.  I do not have a huge collection of cookbooks, but there are definitely some favorites I have added to my collection over the years.
I thought it would be fun to share what's on my cookbook shelf!

This shelf used to hold dollhouse miniatures, and was lined with decorative paper, I really liked the pattern, so I left up the lining on the back of the shelf.  I also have put some of my rock and mineral collection to good use, I filled a decorative glass container with some of my rocks, and it makes for a nice bookend.

Going from right to left- On the left I separated out the blue colored books, The first book is a wonderful baking book I picked up at Ikea, with lots of wonderful Scandinavian treats, the pictures are great.  The next two are two little books about tea time recipes that I have had for quite some time, they have great tea sandwich recipes, as well as some recipes that have tea as the ingredient.  I love tea sandwiches- you can read my post Tea Sandwich Tutorials for some of my favorite teatime recipes.

Moving down the row- The Original Fannie Farmer 1896 Cookbook, I love old fashioned recipes, and I have a lot of fun looking through this cookbook, it is full of recipes, including interesting things like meals to prepare for the sick, they really new how to nurse people back then with proper food.

The next book is called  More-With-Less Cookbook (World Community Cookbook) this is one of my favorites, it was written by a Mennonite woman, and goes along with her book Living More with Less I used to pour over these books when I was a young housewife, lots of wonderful simple meals, and teaching about simple living, I would highly recommend these books. Keeping with the simple living theme the next book is  Simple Food for the Good Life: Random Acts of Cooking and Pithy Quotations and is written by Helen Nearing, I was drawn to this cookbook after reading The Good Life: Helen and Scott Nearing's Sixty Years of Self-Sufficient Living, I love simple wholesome recipes!

The next three are favorites of mine from a time when I was obsessed with Medieval History, I love history, and I really love thinking about how people really lived, so of course I had to read about how they cooked
and what they ate, from peasants to royalty. Pleyn Delit: Medieval Cookery for Modern Cooks Some of the recipes are written in Old English as well as the translated modern version, and comes along with the history behind the dish, as well as sample menus, very fun to read.  The Medieval Cookbook: Revised Edition is the next book I enjoyed, more history and recipes, and nice illustrations.  I am excited to try some more recipes from these books. Medieval history and their cooking sparked my interest in peasant cooking, and I found Celtic Folklore Cooking to be full of wonderful recipes, along with more history and tradition.

Moving down the row are some of my newer cookbooks- Nourishing Traditions:  The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats was one I bought two years ago, very interesting information on nutrition different than mainstream teaching on nutrition, love the recipes in this book for soups and broths! The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Recipes from an Accidental Country Girl was one I picked up a few years back, after reading her blog. I really enjoy all of her recipes, I love her cinnamon roll recipe, and her jalapeno popper recipe is a summer favorite around here, and the reason I grow a whole patch of peppers!  Gordon Ramsay Makes It Easy - yep, despite his temper, Gary and I love watching Gordon Ramsay's cooking shows, and have been watching them for years. This cookbook has some beautiful recipes, most too rich for my blood, and I have yet to attempt a risotto, but the chapter on English Breakfast was appealing to me, as well as some other traditional British recipes that look interesting!

The next books are my cookie cook books- Most of my cookie recipes have been passed down from my Mom and Gram, but every year when I make a ton of Christmas cookies, which you can read about here and here, I also love to consult these two cookbooks- Martha Stewart's Cookies: The Very Best Treats to Bake and to Share the recipes in this cookbook always turn out delicious, and it has our go-to recipe for Snickerdoodles  that my daughter loves to bake.  1001 Cookie Recipes: The Ultimate A-To-Z Collection of Bars, Drops, Crescents, Snaps, Squares, Biscuits, and Everything That Crumbles This has every kind of cookie you can think of, I love that you can look up cookies in this cookbook by their main ingredient, so if your in the mood for a cookie with raisins or maybe you bought too many dates and need to use them up, this cookbook is the place to look.

The little spiral bound book is a very old cookbook on international cuisine that I bought back in high school as part of my French club fundraiser, it is actually the first cookbook I ever purchased. You can find old copies of it on Amazon.  This cookbook has a wonderful brownie recipe as well as some delicious Norwegian Apple Squares that I have made for years.

And another of my older cookbooks that I got when I was first married, New Great American Brand Name Recipes Cookbook I used to pour over the recipes to plan out our meals.  Lots of good classic American recipes.

Two more vintage cookbooks on the shelf - Betty Crocker's Cookbook for Boys and Girls, which I had as a child and growing up we made lots of the recipes from this book, so I had to hunt down a copy when I had children, fun cookbook!  Also my vintage Popcorn cookbook, this has many delicious recipes for topping and flavoring popcorn.  I just love vintage 70's orange! :)

Lastly I have a couple of Taste of Home Annuals- My Grandma used to buy me a new subscription every year, then we would talk about the different recipes that each subscription would have, so whenever I see Taste of Home I think of Grandma!

So that's my cookbook shelf.  What is your favorite cookbook?  I would love to hear what your go-to cookbook is. :)

Thanks for Reading!