Recipe Approaches and Mac and Cheese

[mainpa]

Originally published at Modern Domestic Geek. You can comment here or there.

It occurs to me, as I contemplate my dinner options for tonight, that I really play fast and loose with recipes. Tonight was going to be macaroni and cheese and ham. This recipe has morphed considerably from the time it came into ours family. Twenty-eight years ago, when my

Comments

[gramarye1971]

When it comes to baking, I don't trust myself to play around with the fundamental ingredients, so the most I'll do is add extras to whatever dough or batter I've made. Plain biscuits become sausage biscuits, sausage and cheese biscuits, cheese and sage biscuits, and so on.

For cooking, especially things like basic soups and stews, anything goes. I seldom follow recipes after the first two or three times making a dish -- for instance, I know my mother's basic chili recipe so well that I sometimes add or swap ingredients just to see how the new version tastes. I'll also reduce the amounts of ingredients I don't care for (like onion or garlic or salt) and up the amounts of ingredients I like (like chili powder or fresh sliced ginger).

[mainpa]

Baking really is SCIENCE, and it's the proportions and how it's mixed that give the desired result, so it makes it difficult to really change the core recipe without serious thought.

My partner Sara wrote this, and I have to say - I'm a follower. I try to make it to the letter, if I'm following one. Now there are times when I have ingredients, and I toss in a bunch of extras (usually when making hamburgers) and see how they come out.

And fresh sliced ginger sounds AWESOME. I have some candied ginger that I bought to put in cookies, and I'm always sneaking pieces. In fact, I think I need a piece right now...