Do you use a recipe or just wing it?

"I find that as I get older I prefer stronger flavours and heavier seasoning than is the norm in most recipes." Me too @epicuric! I see a recipe say 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder I am like, huh? You need several cloves or forget it! If I do not really spice/herb things up my family complains that it is bland.
 
98% of the time I rely on recipes. I hope that when I get more skilled in the kitchen this will change, but for now I feel terrified at the thought of just throwing something together all by myself. Sometimes I might skip an ingredient, but most of the time I try to stick to the recipe. I'm such a rule follower... :)
 
It really depends on what I want to make. I like to experiment a lot and I have made some dishes that are unique actually and they are quite good. Nevertheless, some things need specific amounts of things like some cookies or cakes or even dough. If you make a slightest mistake your dinner could end up to be fast food after all. So, I usually go by heart but when needed I use my recipes. A man cannot remember everything.
 
Momma9 said:
"I find that as I get older I prefer stronger flavours and heavier seasoning than is the norm in most recipes." Me too @epicuric! I see a recipe say 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder I am like, huh? You need several cloves or forget it! If I do not really spice/herb things up my family complains that it is bland.
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I try to stick to the maximum 4 cloves of garlic a day - I have enough medical issues without aggravating any of them!
 
Momma9 said:
How do you feel about recipes? To you follow them, change them, or not use them at all?
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I'm with you on rarely using recipes. Actually, I only ever use them as guidelines, not rules. If I don't necessarily know how to do something or how long something should be baked, for example, I'll refer to a recipe that is similar to what I want to make. However, when it comes to following a recipe, I'm notorious for ignoring them.

The things I wing are usually the most delightful, because I put more attention into it, I think.
 
Winging it is great and should be encouraged as even when something goes wrong you can sometimes have results that you didn't expect and could be surprisingly new and delicious.

A good rule of thumb is It's easy to wing it with most things but certain things, usually baked type goods and deserts, are best followed by a recipe. This is what sets baked goods and certain desserts apart because they require a type of chemical reaction to work and like most chemical reactions the constituent parts, as any chemistry teacher will tell you, need to be added in a certain order and in certain amounts to get the desired results.

For instance bread won't rise, pastry will be brittle or crumbly, and a mousse won't set or be like rubber unless you get it right but a soup which rarely (note I said rarely and not never) fails to taste good if you get the ingredients and order they are added wrong as it requires very little in the way of chemistry to be called a soup.

So while a quiche might allow some wiggle room and have any filling you would like and you can wing it to get various combinations of flavours (assuming you get the correct amount of eggs to set the filling), the pastry that surrounds the filling is usually made using a set recipe.
 
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i use recipe every time i cook cause i'm not good at cooking. i even do not know how to cook the vegetable well.
 
I rarely ever use a recipe, if i'm not sure I just ask my husband, he does most of the cooking so his knowledge is great. Recipes are a great guide but if you have enough knowledge then you can play around with ingredients if there is something you don't have/like.
 
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