Spinoff to cooking show thread - Do you create meals without a recipe?

[Disneylover99]

I never use a recipe, but I've got a million recipe books.

 

[bdcp]

I only use a recipe for baking and even then I can make adjustments. As for cooking, measuring isn't as important as tasting is. Chefs will tell you that only bakers measure lol.

 

[indygirl99]

If I'm baking then yes I always follow the recipe, but I don't bake much I go to the bakery.

Everything else I follow the recipe the first time and then change it to make it healthier the next time.

I love my cookbooks.

If anyone has moms recipe for her pineapple dessert I would love to make it again. All I remember is a can of pineapple and cornstarch but no luck in making it and sis is no help in the remembering department.

 

[jevs]

Yep and like the rest of the posters have had some pretty awful results at times

I won't experiment with baking though or bread making.

 

[NMAmy]

I rarely ever use a recipe exactly as written. I always tweak them based on our taste and preferences. All my cookbooks have notes down the side so I can remember the changes that we really liked. My dad taught me that and I love to go through his old cookbooks and see his notes in the margins.

I also make up recipes based on what I have. DH also made me start writing these down so I can recreate them again after I made something he really loved once but a couple of months later when he asked for it again, I had absolutely no memory of this dish.

 

[Cinnabunny]

I use recipes for baking, but most of our evening meals are just from me winging it. I'm usually pretty good at figuring out if something will taste good and guesstimating quantities. I've not had such a disaster that it wasn't edible, but I've had a few meals which I wont make the same way again. I've also had lots of successes which people keep asking for. If I find something we love I write down the recipe.
If I'm making something new I follow the recipe by the letter, until I learn it well enough that I'm confident - but that's just memorising. Then I might try a few adjustments.
My grandma gets a bit frustrated because she says her food is boring and she doesn't have the imagination to think "I'll just add a bit of this" so I've made a bunch of spice mixes for her to switch it up a bit.

I think my willingness to experiment comes from me watching the food network all the time lol

 

[ronandannette]

Most meals here don't need recipes - sautéing or roasting meat, fixing a starchy side and tossing a salad can be done in my sleep. And like @RedAngie said, with years and years of experience, one can usually figure out how to put a dish together once you've been inspired. I love to recreate dishes we've had in restaurants. Once I've eaten something I can usually figure out what ingredients went in and the method is no problem. Baking on the other hand requires precision but if you've memorized the basic ratios (flour/shortening/leven/moisture) you can get creative if you want to.

 

[Minnesota!]

I don't think I have used a recipe in years. Everything I make is by the seat of my pants, and good faith in my palate

I cook based on what is in the fridge/freezer/pantry. Most of the time, I don't know what is for dinner until I start looking.

 

[design_mom]

I usually use a recipe. Sometimes, if it's something I've made often, I'll make adjustments to the recipe based on our personal tastes (more onion, less chili powder, etc.) or combine something I liked from Recipe A with something I liked from Recipe B. (For me to do that though, they'd probably have to be somewhat similar recipes to start with.) And if it's something I've made dozens of times, I might not have to LOOK AT the recipe anymore, but there's still a recipe in my mind.

I almost never start from scratch and just wing it. I think that's part of the reason I enjoy the cooking shows where they have a surprise ingredient they have to work with. I wouldn't even know where to start! I generally prefer to bake more than cook, though. There is satisfaction in having it come out "just so."

 

[MataHari22]

My brain hurts when I try and follow the recipe. I wing it all the time. I'm just not the best when it comes to following written directions and plus, I hate to measure anything, I just throw stuff in. I don't much like baking, because you need to follow the formula and actually measure. If I need to make some sort of dish I've never made before, I'll just google a bunch of recipes for it, read all of them, and then I just do what I want.

 

[Nancyg56]

I rarely use recipes. I may start with one, but it never stays as written. Sometimes it works...other times not so much.

I am more apt to follow a recipe when I bake, there is not much room for error when baking.

 

[pryncess527]

Literally concoct from nothing? No

take a recipe I find and make alterations I think sound good -- all the time.

 

[The Mystery Machine]

My brain would hurt if I tried to make a dish without a recipe. I'm not creative to make something on my own. The closest I come to is make rice, add black beans, garlic powder and salt LOL

I even need the recipe out for some of my regular dishes. I don't remember what goes in them.

My sister is like that. My two brothers are great at grilling. My mom and I "just cook".

I do have some holiday recipes that I follow but I still tweak them....lol.

I try to cook fresh and simple.

My mom instilled in all of us because she cooked from scratch most of our lives.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

I rarely, if ever use a recipe. If I do use a recipe I follow it loosely and the next time I make it freehand.

I create things all the time usually from stuff we've eaten out or st someone's house. I even make food from IG videos. We did a chicken Tuscan spaghetti. The video showed what goes in but not amounts. I just figured it out. It was so good!

It's probably why I'm a horrible baker.

 

[North of Mouse]

Never use recipes - just learned basics from my Mom who never used recipes either, then over the years I've learned to just put together ingredients we love, along with experiments with herbs, spices, etc.

Most everything is scratch made - hate all the pre - packaged, pre - frozen mixes that the grocers are full of.

 

[Diznygrl]

Not really, no. Unless it's something really basic like sprinkling a bunch of spices onto a hunk of meat and throwing it in the oven, or roasting or sautéing vegetables. But when you're talking creativity and whipping up meals with extra special flair, I always use a recipe. Not good enough to think outside the box with my cooking. I will make notes about something on how I think it can be improved next time, but not until I first try it just as it is written in the recipe. The only thing I change up right away is when I'm doing a recipe from Cooking Light and they want me to use skim milk and lowfat cheese and stuff like that. I will automatically just use the real stuff.