More great cookbooks

I regularly shift between cookbooks to keep our meals more interesting. This past week I decided to go through a few cookbooks that haven't seen any action lately. And it so reminded me of how much I love them. Which ones am I talking about? Well I have a small collection (4 to be exact) of Donna Hay cookbooks. The husbands' family turned us onto these and they have been fabulous go-to cookbooks over the years. Who is Donna Hay you ask? She is an Australian food stylist, author, and magazine editor according to wikipedia. But seriously, her cookbooks are great. The recipes are simple - although occasionally she has an ingredient that isn't a regular around here. For example the chicken curry I made last week from her Flavors cookbook called for Kaffir lime leaves. I didn't have time to drive the almost hour to the nearest Asian market so I did without. Anyways, she fits 4 recipes to a page so you can imagine the compact ingredient lists. And everything turns out well - she knows her stuff.

We have these 4 of her cookbooks:

• Off the Shelf: Cooking from the pantry - recipes that attempt to use items you might normally stock in your kitchen and includes a list of items you should keep in your pantry
  
• Flavors - chapters are based on flavor profiles like vanilla, garlic + onion, basil + mint and our favorite chili
• The New Cook - goes over basics but its nice to have basic recipes for pastas, etc
• Modern Classics Book 2 - yummy sweets - one of my favorites!

Tonight we will be having sweet potato cakes with peppered beef over arugula, from Flavors - can't wait!