Random Recipes... the Cookbooks

This month Dom has challenged us to do something a little different for his random recipes challenge. Instead of the usual making of a random recipe he has invited us to share the collection of books from which these random recipes come.

I am the first to admit that I am not a complete regular when it comes to entering the random recipes challenge. I always, always look up and see which recipe I would have got according to the rules of the challenge that month, but the recipe is rarely something I have either the time, ingredients or inclination to make, and so despite my best intentions I end up skipping month after month. But not this time. With no cooking involved I thought there was no way I could miss this one.... although the amount of time it has taken me to get photos almost made me too late. The problem is not the photos so much as the gathering of the recipe books from far flung corners of the house into their home the bookshelf. Yes, I have had to tidy up! (I really hate tidying up!)

So here you can see my collection. They live on two bookshelves in my bedroom, one large one small and although there are still a couple scattered around the place this is the vast majority. None in the kitchen or living room here - just the bedroom.

I don't know if anyone else has this problem but I have no idea how to organise my books - you can perhaps see that there are a number of different attempts going on at categorisation. There are some books categorised by author - you can probably see some spines you recognise (Nigella, Delia, Hugh F-W, Jamie Oliver) etc and then there are some that are organised by genre - vegetarian for example, or baking (there's pretty much an entire shelf dedicated to those ones!) or by publisher - a series of books published by Ryland, Peters and Small, and a series of BBC Good Food 101 books. But what to do with the BBC 101 Cakes and Bakes - with the series of the same publisher or with the baking books? The series above is one I particularly enjoy looking through - the recipes are great and the photography is fab.

These are the newer acquisitions - no logical order at all. And a couple of old ones thrown in for good measure. 

Needless to say I do not cook from all of them regularly. To my shame some of them have barely been opened, but in my defence some of them are regularly opened and read, even if they are not used as much as they might be. Inspiration comes from many sources. Anyway, above are some of my most used ones. Nigella had a bit of an accident with a halogen ring that was still hot, although off, so is looking rather the worse for wear. It's not a particular surprise that my most used books are baking ones is it???

These are the newest ones - yet to be delved into thoroughly. I am rather suggestible though - someone out there (one of my particularly lovely blogging friends!) is responsible for one of these.... but I don't regret buying it!

A few of many magazines...

I confess to being one of the world's worst hoarders - I hate throwing things away and have years and years worth of various magazines on subscription that I cannot bring myself to chuck out. However, I frequently re-read them and so justify keeping them to myself. I also am lucky enough not to have any space issues - it's just storing them tidily that's the problem!

The second set of shelves - much smaller!

So there we are, a little peek into the world of my cookbooks. I've really enjoyed seeing everyone else's collections, so I hope you've enjoyed seeing mine too!