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 cook like you but it comes with experience. Some people never reach that level of confidence with cooking.

It’s also a personality thing. My father’s been cooking for decades but for 80% of what he makes, he likes a recipe in front of him. My husband’s only been cooking for 20 years and he wings it almost every time, even on new things.

DP and I share the cooking and we both do the instinctive cooking and the following the recipe to the letter. We also meal plan. Things like bolognese, risotto, casseroles etc are done on the fly but if I was to cook a recipe which was either new to me or hadn’t been done that often I would dig the cook book out. Having said that, both DP and I can adapt recipes (Within reason) If we don’t have the exact ingredients.

Cooking for some people is fun and relaxing but for others it is just a chore. I fall somewhere in the middle.

I'm like you, I bake simple cakes from my head too (measure out the basic ingredients and then add a dollop of yoghurt/lemon juice/some fruit or cocoa powder etc).

DH used to be like your DH but is getting more relaxed with cooking. He still sticks completely to a shopping list though whereas ideally I'd be like "that veg looks nice, that fish is on offer, oooh cake"...he finds my approach stress

Too many times I have tried this and it's an absolute disaster. I've thrown away whole dinners. It makes me so angry at the waste. I hate cooking for this reason alone. I envy people my mum who can look in an empty cupboard and conjure up a sumptuous meal for the family.

stressful

I have to use recipes for everything I make because I just don’t have the memory for ingredients and quantities. Obviously I would know I need mince, onion and tinned tomatoes for spag Bol but I’d never be able to remember the herbs etc.

I do as OP does.

I often do as your DH does but I cook something different every week so not always things I know how to cook. I can cook the way you do too however if I have a load of random stuff in the fridge that I need to use.

I prefer using a recipe, but I can easily substitute, so I am somewhere in between.

We meal plan, but unless it’s something new I tend to wing it a bit, using up odds and sods of veg and so on. I have about 20 staple evening meals I can do from my head. DP is very much a recipe follower to the letter.

I mostly cook from my head, and measure 'by eye' when I'm baking. Almost always turns out well.
I feel like I'm cheating when I use a recipe... as though the meal/cake isn't really mine because I've copied someone else.

I cook like your dh.
The way you do leaves me anxious OP

I also hate say pinch of salt, how much is a pinch, mine is smaller than dp for instance. Give me an exact amount

One of my favourite things is what I fondly call 'alchemy' in my head- mixing up the herbs and spices for what I'm cooking. I have about twelve spice jars all lined up behind my hob, with some more lesser-used away in the cupboard, and I add 'a bit of this and a bit of that' depending on my mood and what I'm cooking with. I never measure, and use taste to decide with things like pasta sauce or curry.
It always amazes me that the same ingredients (tomatoes, onions, garlic) can become entirely different depending on the herbs and spices used. Enchilada sauce, curry, a variety of different sauces for pasta...

I'm like you, I bake simple cakes from my head too (measure out the basic ingredients and then add a dollop of yoghurt/lemon juice/some
fruit or cocoa powder etc

Would like to point out I made the most amazing chocolate fudge cake ever by the chuck it in method, out of sheer boredom through ld. Cannot for the life of me remember anything I did.

Also although I love cooking, I'm a big believer in simple stuff. The simpler the better (crockpot is my best ever buy, chuck stuff in and several hours later a tasty meal appears)
The simplest cake recipe by far is the yoghurt cake. I love how easy it is, the multitude of yoghurts you can use to make it. Feel like a blueberry cake? Buy a blueberry yoghurt and make one, feel like a toffee cake, crack on, and pick whatever size yogurt you feel like to make more cakes. It's the tub that's important.

Still occassionally I've run out of ideas and Google the ingredients I have to hand, often some nice things can be made this way, and can then be bookmarked if they turn out well.

Neither of you are unreasonable, I tend to meal plan for the week/10 days so I'll write a list of dinners and take that shopping, while out something might inspire me and I'll buy ingredients for something else, I very rarely follow a recipe, but do use them as a lose guideline on occasion.
DH on the other hand follows to every step. Or will bung pizza/nuggets/pie and chips on the oven.

I do a bit of both.

I'm in my mid 40's and I am a diabolical cook - always have been. I can cook a roast (chicken) off the cuff, but anything else - forget it! I have to follow a recipe to the letter.
I'm very envious of friends and family who can just make a dish out of their head and have it taste delicious.
However, I am a mean cleaner and gardener and that is good enough for me.