Creme de Colorado Cookbook Book

I was given this gift at my wedding shower by my sister-in-law who included a list of her go-to recipes from this cookbook. That was 12 years ago. Over the years, I've made the recipes she recommended, some multiple times, and liked them, but I've never ventured out beyond those 5 recipes. For the last 2 months I've concentrated on expanding into never opened pages and have been delighted with the results.
I focused on the main dish and dessert sections. I didn't make anything from the wild game section as I have no access to wild game and recommended substitutions weren't given. My husband who isn't much of a casserole fan loved the Adobe Chicken Casserole and I agree. Most of the salads I made were pretty basic but made better with good, easy homemade dressing recipes. Both the Beer Bread and the Bourbon Pecan Pound Cake were highlights from the baking section.
The best recipes I made were two of the easiest: Lemon Carrots and Easy Pots de Crème. While I normally balk at sugar in vegetables, these carrots with a lemon based syrup that essentially caramelizes the carrots was awesome. I made it early in October and then just made them again for Thanksgiving. I'm not sure I'll ever make standard pots de crème (a French style chocolate custard), which can be tricky with all the egg tempering, after making this easy version. Five ingredients and a blender is all it takes, and it was delicious.

Why not 5 stars? This is a lovely, large, oversized hardback cookbook, but there are no pictures. I like to see food before I make it. It doesn't matter much in the long run, but I think it would have been improved with at least a few photo pages. Also, some of the instructions on a few recipes were lacking. It was fine for me, but a novice might have trouble knowing about preparing a pan for baking, etc. Overall an excellent cookbook!