Cookbooks

I have a lot of cookbooks. I love cookbooks. The problem is...I don't really use them much. The most own-worthy one is one Jason bought me as a surprise after hearing our friend Tasha talk about (she's dubbed it "The Tome"). It's The New Best Recipe by the editors of Cooks Illustrated, and it really is a fantastic cookbook. The pizza dough recipe is delicious and fail-proof, which is nice for helping me overcoming my phobia of making dough. And each recipe has a "story" behind it, with all the we-tried-this-and-it-didn't-work information from the cooks/writers. It's great. Honestly, I like cookbooks almost as much as novels, and this sort of combines them. (Although not as well as Cooking for Mr Latte, which I highly recommend.)

However, even the best cookbooks just aren't enough. They all have impractical recipes or ask for ingredients I don't have and won't go to the store for, and they can't look in my fridge and tell me what to make using those ingredients. And since I shop based on what's on sale (plus staple ingredients), sometimes it's just faster to make something myself or look for a recipe online to get an idea.

Which works well, except when I can't remember how I made something last time that we really liked, or my meatballs don't turn out consistently in consistency, etc. I think the solution is for someone to invent a program where I can type in ingredients I have on hand, what kind of food I feel like (Mexican, easy, saucy), and then it just generates a few perfect recipes for me to choose from....although to honest, I guess I might not follow them even them. :-P