The Basics and More Cook Book

Left:  front cover; Right:  Back cover

Here's an excellent, thick, cookbook, The Basics and More Cook Book, with 1300 recipes, many from Mennonite contributors.  Between 1988 and 2011, the publisher says they have sold 93,000 of these cookbooks.  You will often find them at Mennonite or Amish stores, where I picked up mine. 

I like the basic recipes that use ingredients most of us have on hand, and the imaginative use of garden produce.  By the same folks, Old Order Mennonite market gardeners, who put out the Practical Produce Cook Book, another of my favorites.  This one also has some canning and preserving recipes, including pie fillings with clearjel, and recipes for making sausage, bologna, mincemeat and the like, as well as pickles, relishes, salsas, sauces, jams, etc.

This book, also available online at Homestead Publishers and through Amazon and others, is simply a “good” cookbook.

Here are some recipes we've made:

Coleslaw

Dried Beef and Noodle Casserole

Maple Pudding

Kidney Bean Casserole

Sausage and Rice Skillet

Colombian Chicken and Rice

Meatballs and Sauce

Baked Cod in a Cornmeal Crust

Korean Goulash

Walnut Frosties