Confessions of a Cook Without a Recipe
As I was preparing dinner last night with a 'dash' of this and a 'fair amount' of that, I realized that when it comes to my own cooking, I hardly ever follow a recipe. Am I the only one?
If I am trying a new dish, I'll follow a recipe to the letter. Most of the time. Okay: half the time. I am notorious for finding a recipe on Pinterest and switching up the ingredients to suit my taste. I'm sure the original cook would hate me, but that's just how I roll.
There are dishes I love to make and have made hundreds of times; for those no recipe exists. I was cooking my famous (to my husband at least) Cream Cheese Enchiladas Verde and thought that I should totally share the recipe with y'all. Then I remembered there is no actual recipe.
Does this mean I have unlocked super-secret Southern Belle Achievement points? My grandmother and great-grandmother used to pass along recipes to me that called for a dash of something or 'just enough' of another ingredient. Once you've taken a dish to heart and can cook it flawlessly, does it matter that you don't have a recipe with exact measurements?
I assume so. I might just be lazy, but who cares? I do need to start writing these recipes down at some point; I want to pass them on to my daughter. There are few treasures in life as valuable to me as an index card with directions for my Granny's Upside-Down Pineapple Cake, my great-grandmother's biscuits, or my momma's Hoppin' John.
I've got to start somewhere, so here's my idea: I'll share at least one recipe a week from now until the end of the year. I'll post them here to share them with y'all and so that one day when my daughter does a Google Search for me, she'll get fifty something pages of wholesome recipes before she gets to the scandalous stuff.
Look for my recipe for Cream Cheese Enchiladas Verde tomorrow. I'm going to need at least 24 hours to figure out those measurements, unless y'all prefer directions like, "Add some garlic salt until it looks right." You won't, so excuse me--I'm off to get my Julia Child on.