How I follow Recipes

Warning: This post may be irritating to some. If you are the type of person who likes to follow a recipe exactly, it is likely this post will frustrate you. Even my version of following a recipe is adding more of what I feel works and adding less of what I think does not work. For this reason, much of my cooking is done on the stove top. I do very little baking, which I interpret as being more precise. 

Last fall, my wife's friend requested a recipe for these, grilled pizzas, we made her one afternoon to munch on while watching football. She loved these pizzas, and, wanted to re-create them. Unfortunately I was a little disorganized as I had to figure out approximately how much olive oil, balsamic vinegar & garlic was in the drizzle, as well as the quantities of other ingredients. Due to this (and other) experiences, my wife has encouraged me to write down every recipe that I create; I am begrudgingly complying.

This past Sunday, we had dinner at a relative's home and we, were asked to bring a vegetable dish. After looking over what we had, I decided that we could do a corn & black bean salad. Having never made this before, I went to work. Here is my version of the adventure: Take four ears of corn & slice off the kernels. Why four ears of corn? Because that is how many we had. Add a can of black beans, rinseoff the sludge. Add vinegar in this order: spoonful then taste, spoonful then taste; repeated over 10 times until it tastes just right. Add salt, pepper, and cumin to taste. Grab a handful of fresh cilantro leaves, chop finely and add. Slice some juilienned green cabbage. Why green cabbage? Because it was in the fridge and the salad needed more substance. Up to this point, the salad looked more like a dip.

For those who prefer a recipe (or those not satisfied with the dialogue in my head), here you go:

Four ears of raw corn; slice off kernels
1 15 oz. can black beans
1 1/2 cups vinegar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon fresh ground pepper
1 teaspoon cumin
1 cup cilantro
3/4 green cabbage.

This salad, was wonderful and received great reviews. It was so good that I had a number of requests for the recipe. Even Ruby liked it. Note the cilantro leaf on her forehead.

Lesson learned: I intend to keep track of new creations in a recipe book. If I procrastinate, you may get a slightly different version of the dish but hopefully just as delicious.

Happy Eating.