Easy and Yummy Cookbooks and Recipe Books

What do I do when I'm depressed/upset/nervous/frantic? When I can, I bake. I figured, after seeing the damage to my car (and calling up my insurance company and the police), that it was time to bake, so I made up a batch of rye muffins. The picture is awful and blurry, but you get the idea.

The recipe I used is from Muffin Recipes: Veggie-Fruit-Nut by Darlene Funkhouser. I got it at an arts and crafts sale, and I absolutely love it. Even I, who am less than wonderful in the kitchen, can make delicious things using this cookbook. What's even better, considering my apparently accident-prone nature and my tiny little paychecks, is that most of these muffins are really cheap to make. In order to try out a new recipe I, at most, have to buy one or two new ingredients. For instance, to make these rye muffins, I had to buy some rye flour and caraway seeds. Since I plan on making more than just one batch, the cost really isn't so bad.

So far, I've made sausage muffins, sausage and cheese muffins, and french toast muffins (they taste like donuts). They've all turned out wonderfully. I hope to make chocolate muffins sometime this week.

If I were more knowledgeable about recipe books and cookbooks, I'd make some kind of book list for them. However, at this point all I can do is list the ones that I've been able to get the most use out of:

• Muffin Recipes: Veggie-Fruit-Nut (ISBN 978-1-57166-167-8) - As I've already said, I love this book. I don't imagine I'll be trying out all the recipes (Blueberry Pineapple? Ick.), but this book is still more than worth the $6.00 I spent on it.
• Clueless in the Kitchen: A Cookbook for Teens by Evelyn Raab - My very first regularly-used cookbook. This book gave me the courage to try new things in the kitchen. Actually, it gave me the courage to even just use the kitchen, since it works off of the assumption that the reader knows nothing about preparing food. I've only failed with a couple of the recipes. The quiche recipe alone makes me love this book - I just wish it had been possible to get a hardcover copy.
• Jell-O/Cool Whip Recipe Cards - Don't laugh, I know this shouldn't really count. Most of the "recipes" basically involve adding Cool Whip to Jell-O pudding, with maybe a few things added (like hot fudge chocolate) to increase the yumminess. I don't really care - with my limited skills, anything that doesn't involve buying something completely prepared from the store counts as cooking/baking/etc. So far, the Chocolate Dream Pudding Pie has been a hit at all the parties I've taken it to.