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 say this as someone who knows half a dozen recipes for ‘garam masala’ depending on what I am cooking. I might look like I’m winging it but I really am not.

@rvby - which Nigel Slater book is that?

I cook like you op, I understand the structure of a recipe and what can/can't be tinkered with. Dh doesn't get it all. I think the Nigel Slater book would be good for him!

I think most people cook like me, he thinks most are like him

I normally cook from head but if I need to bake something complicated then I follow the recipe.

We meal plan with recipes but can easily adapt, say if something has gone off or we've run out of a store cupboard staple without realising. We don't tend to measure ingredients unless it's a carb Iike pasta or rice. If a recipe calls for four spring onions and the rest would otherwise go off, the whole bunch will go in. Leftovers are always portioned out for lunches at a later date. Sometimes we'll have "pasta alla Delilah" or similar if we're using random bits up in the fridge, but normally everything is accounted for.

[quote ProfYaffle]@rvby - which Nigel Slater book is that?

I cook like you op, I understand the structure of a recipe and what can/can't be tinkered with. Dh doesn't get it all. I think the Nigel Slater book would be good for him![/quote]
I think it was Real Food?

That combined with How to Eat by Nigella Lawson (which is more recipe based, Real Food being more about developing instincts, if that makes sense) and Mrs Beeton was the sum total of my theoretical training in cooking.

@Buzztothemoon

I don’t think YABU but I do think this takes more skill and knowledge than you might give it credit for. I do the same - so the Mumsnet idea of meal planning and shopping to a list was a complete eye opener when I joined. Whereas I just buy staples and then other fresh stuff we like without any particular plan. But that’s years of experience and learning quite advanced skills growing up from my mum & nan. But it becomes like riding a bike or driving a car - it’s so obvious and intuitive you forget that it’s not like that for a beginner. I often think that when people say about healthy home cooked food being cheaper - well yes but only if you really know what you’re doing and lots of people don’t.

This is me. I buy regular staples, keep a variety of proteins in the freezer/fridge, and I can mix and match foods for regular meals.

Today, I made a big pan of tomato pasta sauce, as I can freeze in portions and use it to make a variety of different meals. I don't normally batch cook like this, I just take what I want to cook from the freezer in the morning, but I had a brain fart at the start of lock down and overbought on tinned plum tomatoes. I hadn't bothered buying extra for anything else, so no idea why I bought so many tins.

I don't meal plan, I look at what I have, and what might need using up. I also might change my mind, or if the DC are suddenly changing plans I may change the dinner plan. I don't want to be tied to a rigid plan.

I have taught my DC to cook (they're pretty decent now, at 20 and 16).

But there are people out there who aren't confident, and who find recipes and meal planning helpful.

Baking, I definitely follow the recipe, though. Cakes and breads, etc, do need to have ingredients properly measured so they are in the right proportions. The flavourings for cakes, etc, can be tinkered with, as those bits are generally not essential.

I do the same as you 90% of the time. I think some people are intuitive cooks and others not so much.

You both seem quite extreme to me.

I have a few recipes I can make from my head and some I mostly know but sometimes have to check the amounts and ratios if it has been a while since I made them . Other than that we try at least 1-2 new recipes every week which I generally to a specific recipe for but am not phased if I have to tweak it a bit or change something because I don;t have a particular ingredient in enough quantity.

We meal plan so don't do much just going in the kitchen to see what there is an cooking from that. Maybe when we are getting to the end of the week but definitely not every meal.

@Buzztothemoon, I agree. I've been cooking dinner since 1988.

I keep a vast array of staples to hand in the pantry, fridge, and freezer.

I am in my 50s so I have been cooking for a long time. There are plenty of things I “just cook” but l will still pick up a recipe book or look online to try something new or if I am cooking something special.

Meal planning fills me with dread. How do I know what I am going to want to eat next Thursday?

Yes I'm the same cooking is common sense

I do what you do op, DH thinks I have mystical powers! Suits me 😁 I can't diy to save my life but he's fab - he can't see that we both have strengths (I think he's amazing).

Meal planning fills me with dread. How do I know what I am going to want to eat next Thursday?

It doesn't work like this in our house. We have a basic plan most week with incorporates 1-2 meals for which we nearly always the basics in the house. We also have at least 2-3 meals allocated as 'leftovers' , which means we either cook from our staple recipes if we want to but it is not a problem if we decide not to eat it that we or we look up a recipe to use up the leftover veg from the veg box otr maybe get a takeaway,.

We often swap meals around if we fancy something from later in the week etc. So we plan for 5 evening meals a week. Lunches are much more casual so we just make sure we have the things in that we can use to eat our usual lunches (eg falalfel, hummus, eggs and veg for omellets, veg for soup etc)

This means there is a plan but it is flexible .

I'd say that most less experienced cooks will follow a recipe at first then start to improvise and make changes as they gain experience and confidence.

My friend buys the same shopping every week and will cook the same set of meals, rigidly following recipes. She gets annoyed if her shopping has been substituted in any way and will struggle to use novel ingredients that she isn't familiar with.

I do it how OP does it - every time, unless baking.

I meal plan and usually follow recipes- DH freewheels and his food doesn't usually taste as good as mine.

I think you need experience and confidence to go off recipe.

I cook from scratch about 5 times a week (DH does the rest) and I have a recipe open about 60% of the time and follow it roughly but not to the letter. I like to try new things and my memory is for shit so reading up a load of recipes for a dish would give me a good idea of what I wanted to do but I’d likely leave something key out if one of them wasn’t on the counter in front of me while I cooked.

This is exactly how me, my mum and my mil cook. I think most reasonably experienced cooks do to be honest.

I cook from recipes a fair bit, but as a reasonable cook I find on reading them I often spot things I want to change on first cooking - whether swapping an ingredient for something I prefer or think will go better, or changing a technique or amounts to get a different effect.

If DH wants to cook something I cook from a recipe I always have to give a quick run down of we do differently.

Thanks rvby!

I'm a good cook but like recipes to get new mixes of flavours eg teriyaki meatballs, cashew chicken, dressing for thai beef salad.

I'm able to tell from a recipe if it will be nice or crap - I know other people can't do that.

That said basic stuff like lasagne, pasta sauces etc don't need recipes. It's just nice to get variety and new ideas.

I'm like you, but men in my life past and present have been like your partner. Very restrictive in my opinion

I used to cook as per instructions but now with twenty odd years of experience later I can pretty much knock food together off the top of head or know that I can put x in the pot rather than y without any stress. Generally I will plan in advance but am pretty good at opening the fridge these days and putting a meal together based on what needs to be used up.

I rarely follow a recipe and have been cooking dinners since I was small. My mum and my grandma both grew up poor and they taught me how to use whatever's in the house and how to know when something looks right texture or consistency wise. I only measure when I'm baking.

My dh is a little in awe of this and sats ge can't understand how I do it but as I point out to him, not all of my dinners go to plan . When he cooks he follows a recipe to the letter and worries if he has to substitute some thing.

However, my dd has been doing zoom cookery lessons since lockdown began as prep for GCSE food tech and I have to admit it's made me want to widen my repertoire a little! She's made pesto from scratch and this week we had amazing Japanese chicken.