Back by request, round two of Five on Friday, wherein I occasionally post five links on a certain theme. This week’s theme is recipe sites.
The sad fact is that I’m severely lacking in kitchen skills, which means that while I have collected many beautiful recipes from a variety of cookbooks and websites, I rarely have the time, talent, or courage to follow through. I’m an optimist, however, so if a recipe website exists, I’ve probably visited it. Even when I don’t collect any promising recipes, I can feel as if I’ve gotten something accomplished, merely by ruling out possibilities and thinking about cooking for a while.
My shiny array of kitchen appliances adds to this delusion. (Three cheers for wedding showers!) If I can’t cook it (and I probably can’t) it’s not for lack of machinery. Have waffles to iron? Food to process? Need to whip, blend, juice, chop, steam, or mix? I’m your gal — or, rather, my kitchen is; you’ll probably want to do the actual cooking yourself. And you can find the recipes to do so at the following sites. If you have an RSS reader, you can even stay up-to-date on new recipes, as many of them offer feeds.
1) Recipe*zaar gets top billing because it is my all-time favorite recipe site (although All Recipes, a similar site, deserves an honorable mention). Search their database of thousands of recipes by ingredient, course, required appliances, and almost any other criterion you can come up with. Compile an online cookbook, add your own recipes, and visit the forums to ask a pressing question or just browse the questions and answers already posed.
2) Sometimes directions alone just aren’t enough, which is where a site like Visual Recipes can be helpful. As the name implies, each step in the recipes is illustrated with a photograph.
3) For me, it’s never enough to know that something is a particular way. I want to know why. Which is why I so totally dig The Science of Cooking. For more information, watch the webcasts or visit their forums.
4) Cooking by Numbers is for those desperate moments when you’re down to a can of tomatoes, a bottle of vinegar, and three eggs. Fill in the ingredients you want to use, and it will spit out cooking suggestions.
5) Ahhh. Bread. One of my favorite things in all the world. I’ve long admired those who can make the perfect loaf of bread. I have yet to reach that point, but The Fresh Loaf, a site entirely dedicated to bread-making techniques, has given me some hope.
What about you? How are your cooking skills? Have any favorite recipe sites or cookbooks?
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I am the stay-at-home mother to a toddler nicknamed Sunshine. During nap times I write books, blog, and play around with the photos I've taken. I live in the southwestern U.S. with my husband, daughter, and two cats. My books are represented by Erzsi Deàk of Hen & Ink Literary Studio.
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I’m actually a bit old fashioned when it comes to recipes and I prefer to flick through cookbooks. Both Moose and myself have folders where we stick copies of the recipes we’ve cooked and enjoyed. She has some fantasic recipes, which is one of the reasons I love living with the girl
When I am struck for an idea and the trusty books can’t help, nibblous.com is always a great place to start. For baking, you can’t beat the BeRo flour site as they have all the classics which work every time and are great to then play with for something new.
I love to cook! My grandma taught me everything I know, which is good because, except a few things, my mom could not really cook at all. Perhaps cooking skips generations? That would hold water save the fact that my sister can’t toast toast.
I don’t have any recipe links for you. I inherited a stock-hold of cookbooks, all generously notated by my Nana. I use those for reference.
On occasion I have referred to a magazine or two for recipes. But that only happens when the cover grabs my attention.
One thing I can’t bake is bread (exception cornbread). Try as I might it never works out for me. Thank goodness for my local grocer’s supply of fresh baked bread. I’ll have to check out that link!
I have the necessary appliances in my kitchen, stove, fridge and microwave. Which do I use most, the fridge when I put what little food I buy inside. I can cook, I just hate to cook so I don’t do it often. My favorite recipe site is called “take-out” or “delivery”.
For someone who claims she can’t cook, these sites are amazing.
Most of my families favorite recipes are those that I “inherited”, and that MAY be written down somewhere, but where I can cook without looking at. As for cookbooks, you can’t beat The Joy of Cooking. Seriously. And for website? The Martha Stewart website has lots of lovely and not always complicated recipes.
Cas, I love to look through cookbooks. I have tons of them because they’re just so beautiful, so appetizing…but so expensive and big, too, which is why I have a huge collection of those, too. But I love those sites you suggested. They look amazing!
Muse, I always fantasize about being one of those people who is at-home in the kitchen, lovingly preparing healthful, appetizing meals for their family in a state of pure zen, so I admire you for that, big-time.
Dru, those recipes sound good to me!
We also eat out way too often.
Larramie, thanks! And I have gotten some good recipes from them, because they make everything look so appetizing. Unfortunately, in addition to my poor cooking skills (which I know are partly due to lack of practice) hubs and I have completely opposite taste in food, which means it’s nearly impossible to find a recipe we can agree on.
Bookmom, I still don’t have that one! I do have Better Homes and Gardens, which is amazing. And I will take a look at the Martha Stewart site. It sounds perfect for us.
My cooking skills (and when I say cooking I mean dinner) are sorely lacking. But, I love to bake! And by the happy faces of my family and friends, think I’m not so bad at that. Most of my favorite baking recipes, I got from my mom. I do enjoy looking through cookbooks too. If we’re having company it’s fun to try new dishes.
Love to see recipe sites as I adore cooking and do a lot of it, but have learned to read and study recipes and pick the quick ones. And a couple of sites I’d never heard of–woohoo!
You caught me on a good night! I have a hard time cooking for one… so usually eat popcorn (it is embarrassing sometimes when I check out at the grocery store and the girl asks, “Are all these popcorn boxes yours?”
But tonight I am making pizza. I am using my mom’s favorite recipe for the dough (yes, I did kneed it for 8-10 minutes because I don’t have any sort of food processor…). My toppings (ready and sauted and waiting for the dough to rise) include mushrooms, red pepper, and green onions. I’ll add chopped pineapple, of course, as well.
mmm…. I can’t wait!
the most i ever cook these days is rice and beans (which, by the way, i could eat every day). but i love looking at recipe sites. you should check out my friend’s wonderful site, http://figsbaywine.blogspot.com/. its scumptious! although she on a break with the blogs at the moment, but look through the old recipes and photos…
Robin, I’m like that, too! Unfortunately — or, rather, fortunately — my husband is not a big fan of sweets, which means that I rarely make desserts unless we have people over. (I do, however, have a stash of chocolate that I go to when I want dessert and he doesn’t, which is always.)
Conda, hope you enjoy looking at those new sites!
I’m still trying to get better at figuring out which recipes will be quick and which ones will take time. But then, I’m just not great at estimating time in general.
How funny, Carly! Just last night I, too, made pizza! In fact, I showed my SIL how to make my super-special pizza crust (one of the only things I make regularly because pizza is my favorite thing). And the whole time I was thinking, I’m teaching someone else how to cook? How strange!
Joanne, my husband actually *does* eat rice and beans almost every day! Or, he did when we first met. So he would be totally with you on this. Me? I’m so sick of the smell, I couldn’t stomach actually eating them. And thanks for the site recommendation. I’ll go check it out this afternoon.
What a find these sites are! I hate to cook, and in fact my man cooks most of the everyday meals because he hates to do the dishes worse than he hates to cook. (I’m the opposite.) But we do like to have people over. Trouble is, he’s a meat and potatoes kinda guy, and a lot of our friends are vegetarians.
So I’m on a constant search for the perfect vegetarian recipe that satisfies everyone. Thanks for the additional fodder, Caryn! I’m especially fond of the cook by numbers site, for those moments when people drop by and all you have in the house is spinach, tunafish and an overripe melon.
I find myself at allrecipes.com a lot. Readers rate and review their submitted recipes and I’ve found quite a few good ones there:)
My cooking skillz are nonexistent. So thank you, thank you for these links!
Caryn, my s.o. also doesn’t like sweets, which is frustrating for me as I love to bake too. So I take any opportunity to bake: parties, little treats for family and friends when I see them. Because if I ate all that I baked, well…
I just wanted to give another ‘shout out’ to recipezaar.com. This is my favorite, and it’s SUPER easy to use. Thanks, Caryn for the Five on Friday!
Ellen, you’re so lucky to have someone who loves to cook! Hubs does some, but he usually does the clean-up instead–and I can’t argue with that, since I’d still rather cook than clean up!
Bookbabie, I like Allrecipes, too. I think I prefer Recipe*zaar because I found it first, so I’m more familiar with it, but on those rare instances when it doesn’t have what I’m looking for, I often go to Allrecipes next.
Hope they help, Slouching Mom!
Conda, I do the same thing! Of course, I have a friend who doesn’t like chocolate so I save the chocolatey stuff for when she’s not able to come over. It gives me an excuse to experiment.
Thanks for the additional shout out, Katie! I saw that your mom has a link to it on her blog, too! And I have a feeling she’s a great cook.
epicurious.com
Caryn, just checking out your blog and – yum yum!!
I hate cooking and so does hubby! But the kids need to eat so I do most of it. In Australia we have a series of books by a mum, called Simply Too Good Too Be True. Really simple, tasty, low fat recipes with ordinary ingredients. It works for me.
Gail