I have to follow recipes. I can never remember what goes into a dish. I will substitute with no regrets if I do not have a particular ingredient however.

A mix. Sometimes I start with a few recipe ideas and create something that will appeal to us. Other times, I follow a specific recipe if I am trying for a specific outcome.

I am a complete wing it cook. I just throw stuff in until I get the taste I like. I do the same with baking, although everything I read says you can’t do that. Screw it, my stuff comes out nice.

90% of my cooking is winging it. Some of the winging it is based on a recipe I read or was told, but at this point it is a regular thing I cook and I have made adjustments for our taste.

Baking sweets is a different story. 90% of cakes and cookies I follow a recipe, the other 10% I wing it.

Haha, @Adirondackwannabe, it’s true, baking is it’s own beast, I think. Because I’m a wing it cook at high altitude I stay far away from baking.

For most of my life I was a recipe follower, then when I lived on my own and was tasked with feeding a bunch of friends something to eat at 2 in the morning I started to “wing it”. Of course anything you make at that time of the night will taste fantastic to a crowd of drunk starving people but it was the beginning of my culinary journey.

Invariably a recipe will call for a couple ingredients I didn’t have and that is where experimentation takes place yield pleasant surprises and also calls to the local pizzeria when things didn’t go well.

The biggest turning point in my cooking prowess was when I mastered cooking seafood. Serving up a perfectly cooked plate of seafood is what motivated me to learn more about cooking and I found that watching the Food Network Cooking Channel was a great way to learn new cooking techniques as well as their website where I source out some really amazing recipes.

The first time I try a recipe I’ll follow it pretty closely. The next time I’ll be a little less precise, depending on what I have and what I thought of it the first time.

Depends on what it is. If it’s something new that I’m making I’ll look at a recipe for an idea of what to do but I usually tweak that a bit to my tastes.

@Cruiser Ah, Food Network. It’s my background noise, I have the app and read the magazine. I remember tips and tricks and go from there. Every once in awhile I’ll follow the recipe to the letter, EXCEPT for measurements. I never actually measure.

Any extra creative drunken late night meals?

@GloPro Go for it. I violate all the rules of baking and get away with it, although I’m not at much of an altitude.
Creative drunken meals: State Street Diner in Ithaca in college. And yes we drove there. :(

@Adirondackwannabe Boo on the driving, but there are a lot of us that grow out of that one. I lived a 4 block walk from downtown in college, and I remember (kind of) ordering a pizza to go at 2am to walk home with. We dropped that damn pie at least 4 times in 4 blocks, so I feel personally responsible for the invention of pizza rolls. You’re welcome.

@GloPro Well, I would tell you about the time I walked out of the downtown bar and walked up the wrong side of the valley and got to the top of the hill, and looked across and saw my campus on the other side of the village, but that’s rather embarrassing. Pizza rolls anyone?

@GloPro My fried rice was always a big hit and allowed me to get rid of a bunch of leftovers.

@Cruiser Great leftover idea… I woulda thrown celery in that, for sure. My celery kick is so intense my friends make fun of me, but I swear, it goes in everything!

When baking, I usually follow the recipe exactly because the chemistry has to work right. (Aside from options like putting in or leaving out nuts.)

With general cooking, I do improvise and sometimes try new recipes which I will modify.

When I was younger, pursuing a dream to be a professional musician, I did a lot of cooking to support my music, especially when I was busking in New Orleans. I would say that I was either cooking in the kitchen or cooking on the street!

I find there are many parallels between cooking and music. When I worked in restaurants,I was part of a team, and I had to pretty much stick to the recipe arrangement, otherwise there would be no consistency from one batch of gumbo to the next. When I was working with bands, I would play the part consistently so we could produce a consistent quality and feel from the music we played.

When I’m doing a solo gig (either cooking or music) I feel freer to improvise. Certain recipes require certain ingredients, just as certain songs require certain notes to be played in a certain manner. But I like to improvise with the seasonings, and I like to improvise with the chorus.

When I’m trying a new recipe, I follow it until I get the feel for it, then I let go and voila! it’s either a keeper, or it’s not

When I’m learning a new song, same thing. I follow the music until I have it down, then never quit improving on the performance.

Wing it. Except you have to follow the recipe when baking.

Cooking is an Art Form for me. I love seeing something I like and trying to create something new using just an idea in my head or a picture.
I actually teach a class called mystery pantry, nothing better than wowing people with what is already in their kitchen. Keeps food prep time from becoming boring and food budgets manageable. Keep play’n with your food.

Wing it. The other day I bought some chicken, grabbed a random asian marinade, took them home and put them together, then threw it in the oven.

I usually go with recipes, but I usually add bits to tweek the recipe, with mixed results.

I’ve got some hamburger in the fridge for dinner tonight. I’m going to brown it with onion, garlic, celery, bell pepper, tomatoes with chili (Ro-Tel®). Then I’ll add some salt, pepper, cumin, tumeric, and a few other herbs/spices. I’ll simmer it for a few minutes while put the rice on, and then roll out the tortillas from the dough I made yesterday.When the tortillas are done, I’ll add some cilantro and lime to the rice, put some on a tortilla, add the meat mixture, top with cheese and maybe some salsa, roll them up and we’ll have burritos!

Where are the amount in this recipe?

@Yetanotheruser dinner sounds amazing at your house. I love fresh tortillas, and homemade tacos/burritos have a much better flavor. Easy to “wing it,” too, cause anything can be rolled in a tortilla.

@GloPro c’mon over! There’s plenty for you!

Both.

I wing it, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, and it’s usually either really bad, or really good.

I do both. Sometimes I just use a recipe as a helper. Like if I have a meat I don’t cook with often, I may look at a recipe with the same meat to see what spices generally are used with that meat.