Day 12--Cook's Illustrated

Andrew bought me the Cook's Illustrated Italian Classics cookbook for my birthday six years ago. At first I was skeptical of the lengthy recipe explanations, time consuming steps and what seemed like a lot of wasted time. After diving into the cookbook however, I was pleasantly surprised at the creations that were coming out of the book--chicken piccata, chicken marsala, pasta fagoli, pizza, vegetable lasagna, shrimp fra diavalo, shrimp scampi...the list could go on. From that delicious cookbook we checked Baker's Illustrated out of the library, bought it and have since given it to several friends as presents. I've made at least twenty five recipes out of the baking cookbook and all of them turn out well. The specific directions which at first I thought were tedious guarantee that delicious food will appear on the table. Now, several years later we have three more of the collection with my favorite being the America's Test Kitchen cookbook which Andrew received as a present two years ago from his mom.

So on this 12th day of November, I'm thankful for a cookbook collection that allows me to bake and cook with confidence knowing that it will all turn out yummy.