… but I’m not mad about it!!

Welcome to Mimi's Tastes Delicious Looks like Hell Bakery!

I was watching a rerun of Great British Bake Off and one of challenges was a walnut cake. It piqued my interest so I decided to look for a similar recipe. Found this on in Snacking Cakes. It's wonderful! My husband and I are empty nesters, so small cakes are ideal.

The only thing I wish was that the maple flavor was more present. I'll use more next time

My bakery (imaginary) bakery is named that because my stuff usually tastes delicious but always looks a little rough!

Was able to make it at the start of our annual Friends of the Library sale and found some fun ones. $2 each!! Let me know if you have any favorites from here - Can’t go wrong with Alison Roman, Melissa Clark and Bryan Ford though.

I am currently loving reading vintage cookery books and one day I will do a dinner party of vintage/retro style foods...

Partially curated, partially inherited! I need some recommendations, I’ve hit a rut and keep cooking the same things over and over.

1) Any favorite recipe recommendations from books in my collection (please include the book name)

2) Cookbook recommendations for soup and chowders. In particular, I want to find a good crab chowder recipe. I had some at Felix’s Fish Camp on the Mobile causeway and I can’t quit dreaming about how creamy it was 🫠

I have to admit that we didn’t follow the recipe from the book too closely (we made a completely different vegan mousse au chocolat with aquafaba and vegan whipping cream) and mainly took inspiration for the salsa, but this was amazing. I made the salsa without the cacao nibs, but added a macadamia crunch instead, and also added freshly grated black limes instead of black lime powder. We finished the mousse with an extra drizzle of olive oil, some freshly grated fermented long pepper and a sprinkle of sea salt. As someone who’s not a big dessert person I have to say that this was heavenly, it was so vibrant and hit so many different flavors. It’s so much better than the sum of its ingredients and every element pairs extremely well together. I would wholeheartedly recommend this to anyone, who enjoys a classic with a twist that feels really fresh and fun.

Might be a weird question, but can I ask where people get their ingredients from? Specifically, produce and grains, legumes. Just at the regular store or somewhere special?

I am trying to head more towards Mediterranean and Middle Eastern recipes, but Im having trouble finding "exotic" ingredients, like fennel or lamb (i dont actually consider this exotic, but literally cannot find anywhere in my mid-sized city). Things like grains and legumes I can find, but theyre at like walmart, so I wasnt sure how everyone feels about the quality vs elsewhere. 

Anyone experience the same thing have any advice as to where you get stuff?  International markets? Restaurant supply? Farmers markets? 

I'm starting to incorporate more tofu and vegetarian-forward meals into my diet, and am hoping to find recs for decent tofu-forward meals. I like tofu but my husband is skeptical, so anything I can do to help impart flavor and texture would be most helpful. It doesn't have to be tofu specific, and I'm open to other meat substitutes as well (tempeh, etc), but if there are any cookbooks that focus on cooking with tofu I'd really appreciate the recommendations!

Hello everyone and happy Friday!

Today’s book is Our Favorite Recipes from the Blessed Mary of the Narrows chapter of the Catholic Daughters of the Americas in Tacoma, Washington. Boy, that was a lot of wording

This book is from Fundcraft Publishing, and - say it with me everyone - Fundcraft publishing never seems to like putting years on their books. The only reason I’m able to assume this came out around 1980 is because in the helpful hints section at the end, there’s printed calenders for the years 1979, 1980, and 1981. There would be no reason to have these on a page beyond the year 1981

I feel slightly bad that I chose this as my 99th scan because I’ve been trying to put out some quality stuff these past few scans with an England cookbook, a Canadian cookbook, a 1940’s cookbook, a cookbook dedicated to a very popular roadside attraction, and this is probably going to come across as just a run of the mill cookbook 😬. But ☝️, there are some interesting recipes in here to make up for it, allow me to show you

For example, look at the Apricot Nectar Salad. Isn’t it just so refreshing to see a gelatin dish without diced pimiento, cheddar cheese, green pepper, celery, and various kinds of meat? This is one I definitely wanna try. Beyond that is the Colored Glass Salad which I’m not sure I’ve seen before, but it sounds very beautiful. Not sure I’m loving the idea of putting sour cream in it, but I imagine you could substitute it for Cool Whip and it’d still be colorful

The Christmas Salad also sounds really neat too. I’m surprised that the jello recipes are catching so much of my attention

Not sure if there’s any mayo fans reading today but Helen seemed happy to provide 4 different salad dressings with it as the base. I appreciate the bold artistic choice to deviate almost entirely from a traditional Thousand Island dressing recipe, but at least the other ones sound pretty straightforward

I try to be as open minded as possible with these recipes but please tell me I’m not crazy for thinking 2 cans of tomato sauce on top of a can of pizza sauce is an absurd amount of sauce in proportion to the other ingredients. And I’ve never seen a savory recipe where onion is “optional” 😵‍💫. Mainly was intrigued by the Pigs in a Blanket recipe below though because my great grandmother made a similar recipe and she is the only other person I know of to call these cabbage rolls by that name. It might be a more common name than I realize, I just usually see them labeled as “stuffed cabbage” or “cabbage rolls” in these books. Still have yet to find a recipe that matches my great grandma’s though. I’m convinced she had a truly secret recipe

The French Cherry Pie sounds pretty good as we head into the desserts. At some point I really need to make something using cherry pie filling. I always see recipes I wanna try that use it. The Apple Cake with butter sauce also sounds very nice. I never thought I’d be interested in having a cake with sauce instead of frosting, but here we are

There were surprisingly a lot of recipes in this book that I didn’t recognize all too well. It’s a nice change of pace from seemingly coming across the same recipes again and again, because maybe this means there were a few more original contributions as opposed to just submitting a tried and true recipe. That’s what makes these books fun in my opinion

As always feel free to drop your thoughts in the comments and definitely check out the full book below if you’re interested. I will see you in the next post!

I’m looking to buy my first serious cooking book and I’ve narrowed it down to *Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat* by Samin Nosrat and *The Food Lab* by J. Kenji López-Alt.

I’m looking to become a better cook and really understand **why certain techniques work**, rather than just following recipes.

I’m happy to put in the time to learn, so I’m not necessarily looking for the easiest book.
**Which one would you recommend buying first, and why?**

I'm one of those "recipe collectors" who checks out multiple cookbooks (ebook version) from the library at a time and then reads them. Yes, I read them -- if the author has put the time and energy into writing explanations of the dishes, ingredients, culture, background, etc., of the cuisine they're teaching me how to cook, I want to read all of it. And then I take screenshots of the recipes I want to eventually try.

I saw Kapusta: Vegetable-Forward Recipes from Eastern Europe by Alissa Timoshkina had just been added by my public library on Libby (though published in 2025) and immediately borrowed it and started reading. I have way-back (like 400+ years or more) Romanian/Caucuses roots, so everything "Eastern European" has fascinated me since I discovered that part of my DNA/ancestry.

This cookbook is a wonderful exploration of the food and flavors from the Eastern Europe diaspora. It also includes and explores a lot of Jewish/Ashkenazi foods and their influences throughout the region as well.

I usually screenshot the few recipes I want to keep from a library ebook cookbook and then work from the images when trying them. But with this book, there were way too many recipes I wanted to keep. So my newly purchased physical copy will be arriving in two days. :)

If you have this book, what's your favorite? Which recipe should I start with?

How many times have I searched for a good recipe, and when upon finding the right one only then to groan at the quantities listed in the ingredients for chicken, lamb or seafood !! It has driven me to despair time & time again. Especially when I have already bought the main ingredient prior to deciding on the recipe. Unfortunately there is no standard across the board, each writer uses quantities that they are comfortable with. And no book tells you how to divide OR multiply the ingredients, which can be tricky where spices are involved. Finally I decided to create a list of Indian cook books based on quantities to avoid the despair which I am sharing with you:-

Books for 500gr to 800gr meat or poultry are

• Anurag Aggarwal
• Atul Kochhar
• Cyrus Todiwala
• Denise de Silva Sankh
• Kausar Raja
• Maunika Gauwadhan
• Mehak Kansal
• Monisha Bharadwaj
• Rohit Ghai
• Romy Gill
• Sanjeev Kapoor
• Suki Pantal
• Vijaya Selvaraju
• Vikas Khanna
• Vineet Bhatia
• Dishoom

Books for 1kg & ++

• Asma Khan
• Ashok Bajaj
• Rupa Gulati
• Camelia Punjabi
• Jiggs Kalra
• Vivek Singh
• Kumar Mahadevan
• Hardeep Singh Kohli
• Madhur Jaffrey
• Pushpesh Pant

Books for 1.5-kg

• Karan Gokani

Mum said she picked it up in a charity shop for a fiver in 1996.

It was almost like a long, A5 shape, dark, and might have been a ring binder!

Would anybody know what this might be?

Sorry if it’s vague :(

Maybe it’s just me, but I really dislike spending time on a dish that in the end I have to top up with something salady or carbs. Hit me with an all-inclusive meal, please. I will panic thinking about what to pair it with it. Am I alone??

Recipe - https://youtube.com/shorts/5nFxVG9O388?si=KXZvw409zYsgCDye

We’ve already made these ones again since filming this. They are PERFECT for fall time! Let us know what you think!

This author holds a very special place in my heart. Though I grew up surrounded by cookbooks (my mother began collecting years before me), it wasn't until I graduated from college and moved to New Orleans that I was exposed to world-class chefs in person. This author was my first "kitchen crush" and I fell hard. I followed his cooking closely, and it informs my own to this day. I do miss him so.

Austin was one of the most beloved culinary figures in New Orleans, whose passing in 2005 in the wake of Hurricane Katrina was universally mourned. Born in 1934, he began working in high school at Portia's Fountain on Rampart Street under Chef Bill Turner where he learned to cook many of the dishes for which he would become famous.

In 1964, his Aunt Helen opened the legendary Chez Helene, and he went to work as the full-time chef. The restaurant's menu offered both haute creole dishes and down-home items with the former being positively compared to those of the classic grand restaurants such as Antoine's, Arnaud's, Brennan's and Commander's Palace. New Orleanians know their food and Austin became a major star in the local firmament from the modest neighborhood dining room. A number of his signature dishes remain untouchable in local memory including the transcendent Fried Chicken with Dill Pickle, Potato Salad and Stuffed Peppers. His Creole Bread Pudding with Vanilla Whiskey Sauce was the stuff of culinary dreams, while the Smothered Cabbage with Pig Tails, his Fried Chicken Livers and ethereal Mustard Greens should never be forgotten. In 1984, he published his first cookbook, Chez Helene: New Orleans House of Good Food, which has become highly collectable.

The North Robertson neighborhood where the restaurant was located gradually became unsafe, causing a drop in business. Though Austin, who had become the sole owner in 1975 when his aunt retired, moved the restaurant to the French Quarter, much of the charm of the original location was lost, and he eventually closed Chez Helene in 1995.

His subsequent endeavors included stints in Denmark, as well as a couple other restaurants in New Orleans, most notably Jacque-Imo's, all while continuing to burnish his reputation with ecstatic guests. In 2000, he published Austin Leslie's Creole-Soul: New Orleans' Cooking with a Soulful Twist.

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, he was forced to take refuge in the attic of his home. He was rescued from the roof after two days in 98 degree heat and humidity, and evacuated briefly to Arkansas, then finally to Atlanta. Several days later, he was admitted to a hospital with a high fever, and died the following day from a heart attack at the age of 71.

Anyone who knew him will always remember his trademark captain's cap and great big smile, as well as the well-earned moniker of The Godfather of Fried Chicken.

Significant publications:

• Chez Helene: New Orleans House of Good Food (1984)
• Austin Leslie's Creole-Soul: New Orleans' Cooking with a Soulful Twist (2000)

For more thoughts on cookbooks and authors that deserve greater attention, check out my free Substack, Cookbook Chronicles' Culinary Archive. My window is the past 140 years, and I draw from my personal archive of 8,300+ titles. I’m sharing my experience in hopes of instigating an exchange of ideas. Subscribe for free and receive each weekly post delivered to your inbox.

- - Rick - Cookbook Chronicles

“Cookbooks feed your head”

Hello everyone and happy Thursday!

Today’s book is from St. Charles Borromeo, a catholic school in Tacoma, Washington. Perhaps a very interesting thing I’ve noticed is that no publisher is listed. Typically these organizations will go through publishers like Morris Press, Fundcraft Publishing, etc. But - and perhaps it’s obvious based on the formatting - this almost seems like the school decided to forego a publisher and print the book themselves. If that’s the case, that makes this book slightly rarer because I’m assuming less copies were made

In addition to that, there is no official year on this book. You could probably find out by looking up names and directories and such, but I’m going to make things easier on myself and just assume that with the presence of “Millennium” in the title that this is most likely from the year 2000

The recipes themselves range from standard to interesting, and this cookbook is on the lighter side of my collection with only being 114 pages total. As always, I included the most interesting recipes but every recipe can be accessed down below on the archive page.

Feel free to shout out any fun, or maybe not fun, details you noticed or opinions you have! I will be sure to see you in the next blog tomorrow!

Their staff of over 12 years was let go due to restructuring. Is this whole thing just going to be a social media app now?

I believe this releases today....anyone pre-order it and take a look at it yet? Curious how people like it + what the technical level is...

I love to cook but can't really afford a bunch of ingredients in recipes. A lot of the books for simpler recipes I looked at used premade things which I don't want to do either because I still want to cook from scratch.

I've been cooking a lot from Rick Bayless, Yasmin Fahr, Ali Slagle, and Lidia Bastianich because a lot of their recipes don't call for that many ingredients.

Which authors/books are your favorites for simple recipes with few ingredients?

I’m looking for a beginner Mexican cookbook. I’m wanting to expand my knowledge of Mexican cooking but I’m kinda limited in the ingredients I have available near me. Which cookbooks are good for people just dipping their toes in to Mexican cooking?

**Hey all - this is the last time I post about this, I promise! There were some folks who had signed up on our message boards after my last post, but the software was buggy, so we had to rebuild with a different system. I just want to make sure those folks know!**

I'm a lover of all things cookbooks, travel, and food, so I've started a virtual cookbook club called The Edible Itinerary! Each month, we'll pick a regional cookbook, try some recipes, and chat about what we liked, what we learned, and maybe even our own travel experiences. I'd love for you guys to participate - any reason to try a new cookbook each month, right? :)

This month, we're cooking from Mia Castro's Cocina Puerto Rico, and I plan to announce November's cookbook choice in the coming days.

There are a number of ways to participate. I hope to grow the community on our Message Boards over time, but I'm also posting on Instagram, Facebook, Tiktok, and Substack, so whatever your preferred method, we're there!