I have a confession to make. I rarely follow recipes. Unless it’s baking, I can’t seem to help myself from tweaking the recipe, even if it’s the first time I’ve tried it. I blame my parents for this, they are excellent cooks and tend to cook more with smell and taste than a recipe. The family joke is when someone proudly announces that they made a new recipe and then has to admit that “well, I mostly followed the recipe…”
Baking is different, of course. There’s a lot more chemistry that needs to happen and so I do follow those recipes.
I’ll be listing the recipes and cookbooks I use each week, but due to space, I’ll only be listing the modifications and if they worked or not. I may feature a recipe if it turns out to be a favorite.
So here’s the recipes for this week so far:
1-Fried Rice with Mushrooms- 400 Thai & Chinese Delicious Recipes for Healthy Living, Rice section
Modifications-Substituted Chinese white pepper for regular pepper because it makes me feel fancy. Delicious! Fried rice is another one that I follow pretty closely, otherwise it turns out bland. Not the prettiest to take pictures of.
2-Tagliatelle with Creamy Shrimp- Good Eating Pasta: Your Complete Guide to Cooking Perfect Pasta Every Time, Fish and Seafood section 
Modifications- made homemade pasta using the recipe from My Italian Kitchen by Luca Manfe, substituted chicken broth for wine. It turned out delicious, even with messy homemade pasta.
3-House Favorite Vegetable Soup- What Can I Bring? Cookbook, Appetizer and Soups section
Modifications-I made a lot of mods to this recipe. I thought it would be bland without them. I used fresh carrots, frozen corn, and onions instead of leeks and all frozen veg. If I had mixed frozen veg on hand, I would have just used those. I used tomato paste instead of sauce, more beef broth instead of water, and added garlic powder and oregano. The only spices it had were a bay leaf, sliced garlic, salt and pepper. I like my soups to have big flavors. Also used 80/20 ground beef instead of ground sirloin, since I had it already. It turned out very good. I would make it again.
4-Petits Pains A La Pomme De Terre (Potato Rolls)- Bernard Clayton’s Complete Book of Small Breads, Rolls section. No modifications made. Lovely taste and texture and used up leftover mashed potatoes.
5-Chicken Risotto A Quilter’s Christmas Cookbook, Main Dish section
About three years ago, the first time I made risotto I texted my husband and said “I’m making risotto and I keep expecting Gordon Ramsey to pop out of the cupboard and call me a muppet for doing it wrong.” So when I asked the Husband if I should try this risotto recipe for dinner, he said “Are you going to be a muppet?” So, of course, I had to make it. Sadly, it turned out to be a dud. I made a ton of mods to this too and it won’t be a recipe I will make again.
Modifications- The cook time is off. Traditional risotto takes about an hour or so and this recipe calls for maybe 30 minutes cook time. Added seasoning to the chicken as it was cooking, used both olive oil and butter to cook the mushrooms and toast the rice, and added garlic powder. It was still pretty bland and very dry, so I ended up adding an entire container of chicken broth during cooking, and 1/2 cup or so of cream, and shredded parmesan cheese at the end. It originally called for cheddar cheese, which would have been weird. It still doesn’t have the creaminess that it should have, but it’s at least more edible.
I’m still working on figuring out exactly how to handle picking the recipes, so bear with me while I figure it all out. And hopefully my food photography will improve soonish too and I can post more pictures. I haven’t finished my craft list either, so that will be coming. This weekend is very busy, but I hope to squeeze in some crafting time.
