Cookbook Corner, January 2026

opening the doors of my cookbook collection

Friends, hello! I hope this post finds you well. I’m dropping into your inbox on this miserable afternoon to share a new type of post with you: Cookbook Corner! See, I don’t know about you, but I LOVE having a nose through other people’s cookbook collections, and then proceeding to judge them based on what I do or don’t find there and what general condition they keep their books in. With that in mind, I thought it might be fun to open the doors into my own personal collection and share a monthly roundup of which books we’ve reached for over the last month, and which recipes were the ones that caught our eye! Think of it as an ode to our Cookbook Club of yore, but with less rigidity about sticking to a set book or two.

I’m hoping that by creating this monthly round-up, it’ll force me to get back into the swing of trying out new-to-me recipes from books I own but maybe haven’t made too much from, you know? I’m also hoping that these posts will encourage you to deep dive into your own cookbook collections, or perhaps introduce you to a book or two that you may not have heard of.

Shall we?

cookbook corner, january 2026

Alison Roman’s Something from Nothing seems to have come out as our most used cookbook of the month, but that’s just because it was a new and sparkly Christmas present. Moving forward I plan to try to incorporate a more varied selection of books, mixing old, new, etc.

Anyways, here’s everything we made this month and which books we got the recipes from!

savoury

Crunchy Chicken Parmesan with Burst Tomatoes from Alison Roman’s Something from Nothing // hands down the most delicious new recipe we tried this month; we loved it so much we made it twice! Husband whipped up a lemony orzo pasta salad to serve with it both times, and it was so! good! If you’re considering adding this cookbook to your collection, this recipe alone would be reason enough! Run, don’t walk!

Carbonara for Two from Alison Roman’s Something from Nothing // a ridiculously detailed, wonderful recipe! The end result was surprisingly creamy, garlicky, and so light! Will absolutely be adding to the meal plan again!

Goodbye Meatballs from Alison Roman’s Something from Nothing // a really very delicious meatball recipe. Tender and delicious, the only real negatives for us were a) the added step of frying the meatballs, and b) the inclusion of ricotta, which we literally never buy or know what to do with when we have leftovers. The first step is probably worth it for the added flavour, but the latter is perhaps a little too fecky for us.

Lemon Pepper Pasta with Browned Butter from Alison Roman’s Something from Nothing // the only recipe we’ve made from this book that didn’t wow us. It was easy and flavourful, but at the same time we thought it was just kind of fine? They can’t all be knockouts!

Fagioli all’Olio from Emiko Davies’s Florentine // addictively moreish, these beans grace our table about once every month; they are the perfect accompaniment to any meat-heavy meal! I always takes the cheat’s way out by using tinned beans, but the flavour is never anything less than top notch.

Chorizo Nachos from Sam Sifton’s New York Times: No-Recipe Recipes // we are divils for homemade nachos, and this cheese sauce recipe has totally upped our game! We were never really into cheese sauce before because it just seemed so globby(?) and unnatural, but this one is so delightful that we’ve 100% been converted to the dark side!

Sausage Rolls from Justin Gellatly’s Bread, Cake, Doughnut, Pudding // this has been my go-to sausage roll recipe for years, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. Of course, back when I had the energy for such things, I used to make my own puff pastry for these, but alas, if you squint and turn your head sideways, storebought is almost just as good.

sweet

Salted Vanilla Shortbread from Nicola Lamb’s SIFT // pictured in my December Monthly Musings post, these were so good! Husband remarked that they taste like those buttery Danish biscuits you get in the blue tins, and he’s so right! Delicious.

Ultimate Chocolate Cake from Nicola Lamb’s SIFT // of course this would be the cake Husband chose for his birthday: an epic 18 layer masterpiece. A small labour of love, but absolutely worth the effort — this was so delicious! We especially enjoyed the slices that we zapped ever-so-slightly in the microwave for that gooey, unctuous, super chocolatey mouthful.

Sweet Bacon Pancakes from Joy Wilson’s Over Easy // this has been Husband’s go-to pancake recipe for years and it is such a keeper! Although the title is somewhat misleading — Joy serves the pancakes with a side of sugar baked bacon slices — this makes the fluffiest American-style buttermilk pancakes. Is there anything better on a Sunday morning? I think not.

Ultimate Chocolate Biscuit Cake from Sophie White’s Recipes for a Nervous Breakdown // we get a hankering for this every so often and it never lets us down! The easiest, most comforting no-bake recipe out there.

And there we have it, our first ever Cookbook Corner! I hope you enjoyed this first mooch through my cookbook shelves — I’m looking forward to showing you some more of my collection over the coming months! If you take just one recipe away with you, please let it be either the Crunchy Chicken Parmesan or the Salted Vanilla Shortbread; you will not be disappointed!

Chat next week for our monthly catch-up,

Vicki xo

related posts

Cookbooks to Travel Through, Our Favourites
Cookbook Club, May 2021
Cookbook Club, June 2021