Answers to Everyday Questions : What are your favorite cooking magazines? And why!?

What are your favorite cooking magazines? And why!?

10 Responses to “What are your favorite cooking magazines? And why!?”

1. Cowgirl_Power said :
   January 22nd, 2011 at 5:56 am

   Food Network Magazine

   I also like Womans World. It’s not really a totally cooking mag but there are always some good recipes in the middle and such.
2. Sara Cox 14o4 said :
   January 22nd, 2011 at 6:10 am

   the BBC’s Good Food magazine. this is a really great magazine because there are so many different healthy recipies and the occasional odd treat which is really great. Special editions also contain small exercise patterns which really help!
3. Lepke said :
   January 22nd, 2011 at 6:36 am

   Cook’s Illustrated and Cooking Light

   Cook’s Illustrated – because the articles explain why the ingredients and cooking techniques were picked and I also love the tasting lab and equipment corner sections to find new products to use.

   Cooking Light – because my husband and I are trying to lose weight and we like the tasty but light recipes in the magazine.
4. Hermione G said :
   January 22nd, 2011 at 6:43 am

   Currently I’ve been reading Everyday with Rachel Ray but I may stop this because I’m not crazy about the content.
   From what the other poster has said about Cook’s Illustrated – that one sounds interesting because I like to know why certain ingredients are in a recipe if there is a reason.
   Cooking Light also sounds interesting because I like to make my own lower-fat versions of high fat dishes.
5. Food recipes said :
   January 22nd, 2011 at 7:37 am

   I like Cooking With Paula Deen. It is released every month.It features Southern recipes and the magazines explains the recipes in very simple terms. It also has a lot of illustrations to guide beginner cooks.
6. Fido said :
   January 22nd, 2011 at 8:22 am

   I adore Cook’s Illustrated because it does exactly the sort of cooking I’m interested in. I don’t take a lot of time to prepare fancy presentations or include a lot of exotic ingredients where the whole is merely the sum of the parts. I want to understand the basics of my ingredients and techniques; I’d rather have a simple dish prepared well than a complex dish that doesn’t show off all that effort to advantage.

   I also like the idea of preparing things from scratch whenever I can. It makes me feel really in touch with it, and like I’m preparing it the best possible way. I also get to use organic ingredients.

   They have a companion magazine, Cook’s Country, which is more geared towards the people who actually cook for a family, and therefore have to crank stuff out. It has a much more practical feel than Cook’s Illustrated.

   My favorite example is the difference between the Cook’s Country and the Cook’s Illustrated chicken-and-dumplings recipe. The latter starts with a whole, raw chicken; butchers it; makes stock out of the carcass; adds the meat; steams the vegetables separately; and prepares the dumplings from baking powder and flour.

   The Cook’s Country uses rotisserie chicken, frozen spinach-and-carrot mixture, canned stock, and refrigerator biscuits.

   But like Cook’s Illustrated, they’re making the best food they can out of it. The roux is made properly in both cases. They’re balancing the proportions, and getting the most flavor without including extraneous or simply showy ingredients. It’s using frozen, not canned, vegetables, which have a vastly better texture. All of the ingredients are real food; there’s no Dream Whip Miracle Petroleum-Byproduct Byproduct in it. It’s the recipe you’d want if you weren’t going to spend all day doing it: optimized to balance time and product.

   I love to do the Cook’s Illustrated version whenever I can. And I apply the lessons I learn from both magazines to do my favorite style of cooking: opening up the refrigerator and freezer and just creating.

   The other things I read: The Baker’s Catalogue from King Arthur Flour and the Penzey’s spice catalog. They’re free, and of course each issue is largely the same as the last, but there are enough little blurbs on new tools/spices or commenting on old ones to make them interesting.
7. delouse said :
   January 22nd, 2011 at 9:00 am

   Gourmet – good articles and wonderful (and sometimes complex) recipes. I’m not anywhere near wealthy enough to need this magazine, but wine and food articles are very well written and very trustworthy

   Bon Appetite – Great for ideas for interesting dinner parties, full of helpful techniques – this is a good place to keep current with food trends in restaraunts

   Cucina Italiano – When you want to cook real, authentic Italian food – GREAT recipes – sometimes it’s difficult to find all the ingredients, but well worth the search!
8. beverage said :
   January 22nd, 2011 at 9:28 am

   The only one that I have a subscription to is “Delicious”. The prime reason I like it is because at least half the recipes in it are ones that you can make with ingredients in your (well-stocked) pantry – and they just fit with my tastes! They offer new twists on old favourites – “Quick Pasta and Meatballs” where you make the meatballs by opening up a sausage and squeezing blobs out, or a DIVINE chicken tagine with apricots and chickpeas, to just pick a couple of favourites out of one randomly chosen issue.

   Some of it is excessively fancy and chef-y (no, I am not going to fool around with a blow-torch and 8 eggs to make creme brulee), but they also have really sensible weekday family meals – egg and bacon pizza was a big hit with my husband!

   I’ll occasionally pick up a copy of the Foodtown magazine, but it does tend to promote various pre-made and proprietary ingredients and I really do prefer to cook from scratch. Though I did get a scrumptious caramel macadamia slice out of one of the recent ones!
9. Driskoll said :
   January 22nd, 2011 at 9:47 am

   recipes. But I do get two of the above mag.’s currently. I used to get TOH when it first came out for a few years and I couldn’t store them so now I just go online. I am sure there are a few others out there I would like but just haven’t come across them.

   I really am not into the gourmet magazines as it doesn’t fit into our lifestyles. They are fun to look through when out somewhere though.

   I watch several shows of Food Network now and am more wanting to get a good recipe book or books.

   My opinion,
   http://www.tasteofhome.com
   http://www.rachaelray.com
   http://www.foodnetwork.com
   http://www.allrecipes.com
10. Constant said :
    January 22nd, 2011 at 10:00 am

    Taste of Home (always easy recipes)

    Cook’s Illustrated (I love how detailed it is)

    I like to read through others, but only for the fun of the articles, I don’t usually find I like to prepare recipes out of Bon Appetit or Gourmet, because they call for ingredients I don’t like to use.