Cookbook Crusher

So many unmade meals.

I have too many cookbooks.

To be fair, I'm sure most of us do - we pick them up or are given them, and we try maybe one or two recipes, then leave them to gather dust. I'm going to try to pare down my cookbook collection by giving them real test-runs (aka "crushing" them). The good ones stay, the bad ones go to the used bookstore in the sky.

Usually, when cooking from a recipe, I will adjust and tweak a recipe as I go. But I want to see how good the actual recipes are in these book, so I'm going to keep them as accurate to the book as possible.

Here are my rules for each cookbook I crush:

• To qualify as a cookbook, it must have at least five recipes in it. I'll count proper cookbooks, cooking magazines, promotional material, non-cooking magazines, even novels or newspapers! I prefer print, but if there's something interesting online, I'll give it a go.
• I'll try to cook five recipes exactly as written in the recipe. I'll only make substitutions when absolutely necessary - an ingredient is impossible to find, the recipe is very old and needs modern adjustments, or it seems outright dangerous. I'll note the substitutions made.
• I'll give an honest review of the result - no crap, no going easy.
• I'll also suggest what changes I would make to improve the recipe if needed.

Let's get cooking!