Cooking Light 2003 Cookbook...How do you use it?

[myrnas]

Am I the only one, or do you find this book hard to use? I thought I just had to have the book, but find the format most difficult to use. How do you use it? Maybe I just need to work harder at it. Now that I have made the investment, I really don't want it to be another cookbook I don't use.:confused: :confused:

[Sami]

i agree the indices are terrible. But I throw out my magazines the end of the year when the annual appears and so I use it to find the recipes I have liked during the year. I mark them in the book before I throw the individual issues away.

Sami

[chefjon]

It does seem a bit cumbersome to me, too. I don't know why they won't list the recipes by ingredient, such as chicken, seafood, pasta, etc. You can find, in the general recipe index, several places where "main dishes" are listed. What I do is go through the book when I get it, and write down each recipe that looks like I'd like to make it and its page number, and keep that sheet in the book.
I find that there are a lot of recipes I had forgotten about or never realized they were there when my monthly issues came. It's also a way to get rid of the magazines at the end of the year, unless there was something other than the recipes I kept them for.

[shscharles]

Ditto on marking up your book...I go over the whole thing when I first get it and mark the ones I'd like to try with a highlighter in the index.

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who thinks the index is unnecessarily cumbersome. Someone needs to tell CL (are you listening out there?) that there are websites that can help with indeces. It's not that hard to do and will waaaaay enhance the product...

[myrnas]

Thanks for your responses. I am glad it is not just me. (misery loves company) Thanks for the ideas. I am sure that there are wonderful things to make in the book, it is just a pain to find them. I'll keep on working at it, but, thank goodness for this BB. I think I get the best of CL here.

[sneezles]

I find the three indexes very useful. If I know the name of the recipe I can find it in the "Recipe Title" index, or by month if I know what issue it was in or just by browsing the General Index which does list by ingredient.

[Varaile]

I agree with sneezles, I like the three indexes.
When I get my annual, I go through the month-by-month index and highlight everything I made.

Then for everything else I use the general index which does a pretty good job of listing things by ingredients. Sometimes it takes a little bit of cross referencing, but I usually find what I'm searching for. Providing it's in this annual...:rolleyes: :D

[myrnas]

Maybe I have just not tried hard enough.....more homework. Thanks

[Sami]

Another thing I do is go to the CL main menu and click on magaines. You can download the indexes there and they are very easy to use. I don't know why the book isn't like that. I print the indexes and put them in the back of the book.

Sami