Question of the day 11/9/2011

I follow a recipe unless I have made it MANY MANY times. I am not a good cook. Though my late boyfriend never complained. But trust me, that was just because he me. Not because I was a good cook !

I "dump" things together all the time. When I do have a recipe, once I've tried it I tend to substitute ingredients or change amounts.

It depends. If it's a larger meal, but just for Rick and me, I'm a little easier going and won't follow a recipe.

Last night, we had the turkey dinner, which was the turkey, stuffing in a crock pot, party potatoes (mashed potatoes with a bit of a twist, I guess), corn pudding, etc. Dishes that I've made a million times, well, I can make them in my sleep. Newer recipes or ones that I've not tried before, I'll follow pretty exactly...at least for the first time.

Cakes and cookies, I'm pretty exact. Breads, pies, cobblers, not so much.

Something I will do for larger dinners and I honestly think it makes the day of the dinner so much easier. About a month or so beforehand (like for big holiday dinners), I'll prepare my menu. Then I'll look through each recipe on my menu and write down what I'm going to need for groceries. And I'll start buying things ahead of time. Produce and dairy can wait til the week of the dinner, but canned goods, packaged goods, frozen foods, and the like can be purchased way ahead of time.

About a week or so before the dinner, I'll sit down and figure out what I can make the night before....mashed potatoes, the gravy (if having), corn pudding (if having), iced tea, things like that can all be done the night before and refrigerated. I just refuse to deal with mashing potatoes and making gravy at the last minute...I'm not going there. I want to enjoy the dinner, not rush around trying to get everything done. If it's not something that can be done the night before, I may still be able to make it early the morning of, and it will still taste great.

I also create a time line. At this time, stuffing has to be in the crock pot. At this time, the baked beans have to be in the crock pot. At this time, the corn pudding has to be in the oven at this temperature. Then at this time, we put the potatoes in the oven. (I have two ovens, so I don't have to worry about temperature differences.)

I figure out what dishes we're going to use, which tablecloth goes on the table, what we're using as a centerpiece (yesterday, I picked some black-eyed susans, and added some ceramic pumpkins, and some large walnuts from our walnut tree. It was really pretty.

Yesterday, my sister came in around 2:00 to help me with dinner prep. I was in the shower and Rick said, "All we have to do in turn the oven at 375 at 4:00. And put the corn pudding in. And at 4:30 we have to put the potatoes in the oven. And heat up the gravy." And that was all we had to do. I had the table set, the drinking glasses were on the counter and the wine was chilling in the fridge, along with the cold dishes. By 3:30 or so, my sister and I were sitting in the living room with a nice glass of wine and they were all watching a football game.

I know, it's anal. And it seems like a lot of work to do all this ahead of time. But.....it's worth it for me because I know what we're doing. And the end result is a good dinner with no hassles at all. (And since most of the dishes were made ahead of time, we don't have all that nasty clean-up either!)

And that's a lot more than you wanted to know! One of these days, I'll figure out exactly how to answer a question without writing a book!

Winchester, you do it exactly like my Mom does it. Always organized, menu planning, down to the very letter. It always turns out nice.

I have my set of things that I just know how to do and do it by memory. If I am following a recipe, I usually tweak it to my tastes. I like heavily seasoned foods, so I am always adding more seasoning to recipes.

I usually follow a recipe. Sometimes if its just for the 2 of us I'll experiment with something, but generally I'm a recipe follower. I need to locate that cooking gene my mom has and see if I can make it surface

I'm kinda half and half... I look at recipes to get ideas and then wing it. My mom was a really good cook, although she never really strayed much from recipes... sometimes, she did improve them, or make them a little healthier (milk instead of half'n'half, that sort of thing).

I do what i call Pantry-Diving. I'll find things in my pantry that might be good together and see what I can come up with... it's hit or miss... usually I do pretty good, but there are times... blech.