Taste of Home Best Loved Recipes

Edited by Catherine Cassidy

Taste of Home, 2012

928 pages     Cookbook

Coming into the holiday season, I want to give a shout-out for a great cookbook, Taste of Home Best Loved Recipes. The publicist sent it to me about three months ago, and I have used it endlessly since then. There are 1485 recipes in the cookbook, and I have tried about 50 of them. 

Our absolute favorite is Chicken Korma found on page 504, which I made when my pregnant daughter said that she was really, really, really hungry for Indian food. I also made the cucumber salad and the minted rice with garbanzo curry to go with it. The meal was a huge hit. I went first to this cookbook when I needed to cook a lamb roast. The plum sauce that went over the roast was delectable (p,224). What, you’re almost 70 years old and you’ve never cooked lamb? Well I have now.

We have particularly enjoyed all the vegetable salads that we have tried in our quest to eat lots more vegetables—well, anyway, my quest to eat lots more vegetables. Frankly, my husband is just as happy when I cook the meat dishes and the desserts. 

Chicken Korma

I have three major gripes about the cookbook: one is that while it is in alphabetical order, it is not intuitive and I find myself searching the index trying to find a recipe that suits the ingredients that I have on hand. The second gripe is that there aren’t many pictures. Also, there is no nutritional analysis of the recipes. On the other hand there are 1485 recipes. I guess you can’t have everything. One of the beauties of the Taste of Home Cooking School Cookbook, which I also blogged about, is that there is a picture for every recipe and nutritional analysis for each recipe as well.

Here is the good news! Most of the recipes have pretty standard ingredients. In other words, you don’t have to go to the store looking for unusual spices or other ingredients. That’s one of the main things I like about Taste of Home. I can look at a recipe in the morning and make it for supper.

If you are a cook or know a cook, the Taste of Home Best Loved Recipes would be a wonderful holiday gift.