To think most people cook from their heads?

[untiedstates]

I can just walk into the kitchen and start cooking. For example, pasta sauce I will chop and onion and get it softening then scan the fridge for veg and protein and chop and bung in. Similar for curry. Similar for soup, stew, pie filling, savoury mince and all sorts. I use recipes when baking. If I’m trying something new then I will usually read 8-10 recipes then make up my own borrowing bits from each.

DH thinks this is some sort of witchcraft. He can accurately follow a recipe but gets extremely panicky if the recipe calls for onion but we only have leek or if mince comes in 400g packets and the recipe calls for 450g.

I think most people cook like me, he thinks most are like him. Who’s BU?

I’m somewhere in between. Most meals are made up as I go along, but I do follow recipes if I want to try something new that’s an actual dish if you see what I mean. Like, I’d happily make up a spicy stew, but would look up a recipe to make a dhansak. I do t get panicky about specific ingredients though, and can manage substitutions if necessary.

DP needs to know what something is for. There's nothing in the fridge, except sausages. I don't fancy sausages, as I had eggs for lunch. He wouldn't automatically go for sausage casserole, sausage pasta or toad in the hole, it would be sausage and egg 🤷‍♀️

I'm mostly like you, OP. I do also use recipes but am happy to tweak them if necessary or desirable. Dh is even more like that than me - he never follows a recipe to the letter.
Cooking that way and doing it consistently well takes experience, but it doesn't mean you need to have been taught to cook or that you learned from a young age. Dh and I are both good self-taught cooks.

I was never allowed in the kitchen as a child, lived on fast food til the kids came along. Then had to learn to cook. Slavishly followed recipes until I knew them by feel. Then over time I've learned to trust my instincts and can knock up a meal from sod all.
So recipes are still used but only on new dishes.
Somehow the chemistry in my head tells me that this herb/spice will go well in x dish.
Obviously I have disasters sometimes. That's what takeaways are for. But it's rare I fuck up so its inedible.
And somehow baking comes naturally. If you ever ate my mums food you'd be proud of me getting this far.

I meal plan in terms of knowing I have ingredients in the house for 5-6 mess but then it will be, what so we feel like today? And then I'll go and cook it. I don't do anything complicated so I wouldn't use a recipe, some veg, flavouring , then beans in mine and meat in DH's portion.

Yes I see what's fresh and good value in store - then I cook from there. Staples are onions, mushrooms, peppers, carrots, garlic.. potatoes

Can make nearly anything from there.

I think this is one of those things that divides people pretty much down the middle. I’m with you, OP, but there’s plenty of people who are like your DP.

So I'd follow your approach rather than your DH. But then I like cooking and it's a bit if an art to me.

I can cook 'out of my head', swap ingredients, taste and know what's missing. I learn recipes quickly too so when I've done it once I don't usually have to refer back to it next time. I'm teaching DS the same (plus he's taking Food Tech next year). DH is more of 'it looks done, here you are '

I am a "fling it" cook, easily make something tasty from not very much, combine things together, no recipe required

I do love a recipe book though or a swanky foodie magazine for inspiration, have often recommended recipes to people only to have them say it was nothing like mine, for me to realise I really just got the gist from the actual recipe and improvised the rest!

Recipes don't really matter for cooking, it is witchcraft ...except for baking, that's more sciency! :o

I’m like you OP, to the point where I find recipes irritating and frequently deviate when I disagree with them.
My DH is pretty similar in that he will be fine to make something off the cuff in the kitchen bIt if you ask him to make Something from a recipe he absolutely cannot deviate from it.

I genuinely don't think I've ever followed a recipe to the letter other than for cakes. I sometimes look at them for inspiration (GoodFood Website is great for this) but tend to adapt them to what I have in the fridge.

I think the reason most people think they can't cook is because they try and follow recipes and the dishes don't work because the vast majority of recipes are written using commercial equipment and don't realise that an awful lot of people are attempting the same dish at home with electric hobs and pans from Wilkos.

They also seem to fail to realise that not everyone gets free range meat and good quality veg and that a supermarket onion out of a 1kg bag of smallish onions is about half the size of the catering sized onion from their fruit and veg merchant that they used.

I'm with you OP

I’m like you. I might meal plan that we will have a particular meal one night but just the main bit e.g salmon Monday, Pork Tuesday then I’ll make whatever we are doing with it up. DH is more of a planner and prefers recipes but is coming round to my way of doing it. I really don’t like following recipes it takes the joy out of cooking for me. Again like you if I’m doing something new I’ll have an idea then google loads of different recipes to get an idea of how it’ll work but won’t ever follow just one.

A mix of both for me.
I like to look at what ingredients I have and challenge myself to make a dish from it.
Sometimes it works ( I made up a chicken dish that's a massive hit ) and other times it's an absolute disaster.
That said, most of my cooking comes from my head.
There was a recipe website which if you posted for example, I have 2 sausages, half pound of mince and a carrot, it would give you a recipe using those ingredients. Sadly I can't remember the name of it.

If i cook from "my head" we have toast!
I need a recipe to make anything nice - and by nice i mean that you can actually eat not nice and fancy!

I'm pretty much the same - I'll only follow a recipe to the letter if baking as that's science. Then again, I'm 43. I watched DM cook from scratch all the time, I was a student in digs and I've spent time on the dole. So I've been shown how to cook, I've had to cook and I've done it for decades. I can easily see how someone who hasn't been shown what to do and hasn't had to do it wouldn't be as confident as me.

I do a rough sort of meal plan when I shop, but then frequently go off piste and do it your way. I find store cupboard/fridge meals, where I use up lots of odds and ends, very satisfying.

I largely do as you do and don’t use a recipe book unless I’m cooking something new/unusual/extravagant but voted YABU as don’t think there’s a right or wrong way to cook!

MIL has to follow recipes. She only had 3 oz of brocolli making a veg flan and was actually about to panic. I said ' Do half an oz more of carrot and sweetcorn'. She looked at me stunned and asked 'Can I do that?'

I can follow a recipe, complicated things that every step has to be followed exactly to get the rise/texture etc. But that's not my day to day cooking. Probably one a month I'll look for a recipe and mostly that's because I'm bored and looking for new flavour combos. If I don't have quite the same spices as required I'll add similar ones to the same intensity of flavour.

I never use 'cinnamon' when I see it in a recipe now. I always make up a teaspoon with cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, cloves, mace etc and I find the flavour much less powdery and sharp.

When I was a teenager I read a Nigel Slater cookbook, he explains how recipes are structured and which flavours/textures go together. From then on I've cooked without a recipe, unless it's a cuisine I've less experience in, e.g. curry spice mix from scratch, certain seafood dishes.

Baking is always from a recipe though.

I also went through two periods of significant loss of income, where I had to make do with whatever was in the bargain bins. That teaches you both creativity and what Mrs Beeton called "the art of using up". Many many people, especially nowadays, don't ever have to learn that sort of thing, so they just dont. Recipes it is.

I don't cook from scratch, chopping veg and all that. I just use jars. I haven't got the attention span to remain in the kitchen that long.

I just dump jars and meat intro the slow cooker or roast things in the oven.

DH likes to online shop and I have to cook with what the fridge tells me too based on not wasting anything - it’s like a bit of a sport ( my life is quite dull ) so I go the op way ..recipes are for baking and general. inspiration.
That said, anyone who rolls up their sleeves and cooks healthy meals from scratch (or a clever little bit of cheating ) is a food hero whichever way it suits them.
Also a fan of making too much and saving a meal in the freezer/ a bit to help out with a later meal/sandwiches or whatever.

I buy all veg pre-prepared.

Depends what we have planned. I can do 99% of our regular stuff from my head, but I do like to try one new recipe a week - usually on a Saturday.

But regular stuff like lasagne, curries, chilli, macaroni cheese, fish pie, soups, baked stuff etc all from my head.