A True Believer

There are many cookbooks out there. I own a few and I usually only use a handful of recipes from each cookbook. It's kinda sad. I even subscribe to Real Simple and I used to subscribe to Cooking Light to get more cooking ideas. For some bizarre reason, I just can't cook every single night of the week. Part of it is that B and I LOVE to eat out. So if we can come up with any excuse, we're out the door and driving toward some restaurant. But part of it is that something always comes up--a bad day with the kids, a playgroup that ran longer, or I just feel kinda tired. It sounds sad when I say it out loud--I stay home with my kids, but I can't seem to put dinner on the table every night. I'll have good weeks and bad weeks. One week I'll cook every night, then the next week I'll want to eat out more than half of the week. Luckily, since B loves eating out, it never seems to be a big issue. We're funny like that--we don't spend lots of money on clothes, shoes, and things like that, but when it comes to food, we will drive a great distance and spend a great amount of money.

But lately, I've been using this new cookbook that I got for Christmas from A called America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook. (I kinda mentioned it in a previous post.) It has been an absolute DREAM. Seriously. I've only made a few things out of it so far, but everything has been delicious. Even B is cheering for this cookbook. The snickerdoodles and chocolate chip cookies were perfect. I made French toast last weekend and B called it "the best French toast I've ever had." I also made a basic, but delicious baked ziti. I also tried one of their pasta skillets and it was great. This cookbook is now my go-to recipe book. I'm so excited because I've never had a go-to cookbook!! (Sounds sad, doesn't it?)

Basically, America's Test Kitchen is a show on PBS. The cooks on the show test out all different types of equipment or foods to find out what works best. (I've never even watched this show, I just asked for this cookbook based on online reviews.) This cookbook has lots of little stories about what happened behind the scenes before the "perfect" recipe came about. It also has pages about basic techniques that they've perfected. Some nights I'll literally sit down on the sofa with this cookbook and read through some stories while we're watching TV. It's that interesting.

The thing I love is that now I have recipes that I know I'll keep going back to. I probably will never make French toast any other way besides the ATK way. I know this post totally sounds like a book review, but I just had to post about it because this is the first cookbook that makes me excited to cook and actually gets me to cook more. I'm seriously a believer!