Just curious how many people actually cook by a recipe every time they cook or at least most of the time? Personally I don't use recipes very often. I use recipes for idea's and then take the idea and make it my own way. I have more fun when I'm winging it with an idea more than a set recipe. Does this work for anyone else? Any good improvisational dishes you'd like to share?

In general I treat recipes more as a guideline, not a strict set of rules. However, on new or particularly complex dishes I will certainly follow fairly closely.

I am an anal-retentive chef with any new recipe until I prepare it a couple of times. After that, I feel free to modify or tweak the recipe as I see fit.

There are some cookbook authors that I respect a lot (Richard Olney, Deborah Madison, Jerry Traunfeld, Judy Rodgers, Anna Del Conte, Julia Child). When I'm making one of their recipes for the first time, I will follow it to the letter to learn what they had in mind. After that, I'll go in different directions using the recipe for ideas and guidelines.

Some other cookbook authors I only use for recipe or menu ideas and never strictly follow their recipe. Any of Alice Waters cookbooks for example. Great for ideas, esp menu ideas. But she doesn't include enough of the critical details for her recipes. Besides, any of Richard Olney's cookbooks are well written and great examples of that style of cooking (Richard was Alice's, Jeremiah Tower's and Paul Bertolli's mentor...as well as being more than Jeremiah's mentor ).

I'm always on the lookout for a new cookbook authors to trust, esp one that talks about wine and food pairings.

The first time I make something from a recipe, I usually stick fairly close to it. I then make notes in the book how to alter it for future dinners and try to perfect it that way.

I don't cook as often as you all but to be honest I roam around the grocery store or market for a half hour see what's good and put the meal together in my mind. To be honest sometimes it doesn't work out very well, but whatever it's fun being creative like that sometimes.

Hey Fred, anybody who tells you they don't have failures is pulling your leg. I screwed up a pepper steak with the wrong cut of beef a few weeks ago. I bought something in the market called beef for pepper steak. I'll never do that again. It's one of my specialties with coriander, garlic, cumin, onions, sesame oil, soy sauce, and chili paste, with a greatly reduced chicken broth for the sauce. It comes out great with flank steak.

When I bake, I almost slavishly follow the recipe. But baking is about chemistry, so you almost have to. I'll change the flavorings and ingredients (substitute nectarines for peaches, dates for raisins, etc.), but I still follow the recipe.

When I'm cooking dishes that don't depend on chemical reactions, I'll wing it almost every time. A dash of this and a smidgen of that is the most fun way to cook, in my book (pun unintended).

The important thing to me in a "recipe" is the proportion of certain ingredients. For example, certain sauces or reductions I make have relatively precise proporations of stock, wine, etc. So I follow these "recipes" very closely. Replication is key here-if it an't broke, don't fix it.

Other receipes like say marinara sauce are much more forgiving-you add a little this, a little that and it works out (usually) fine.

But as I often say to my wife (who does a lot of cooking by feel), when she makes an absolutely perfect dish in terms of flavor, its difficult to replicate unless you write down the recipe (again proportions of certain key ingredients). If you do write it down, then the next time you are following a recipe.

Over the years I have used recipes quite a bit. They have been an integral part of my learning how to cook (like william hung, I am self taught). I use a recipe to make new things, but then the second time I make something, I find myself trying new variations, or adding elements from a different recipe, etc.

Until you know enough about how different ingredients taste and interact with each other, not using a recipe can lead to certain disaster. At least for me.

The first time we use a recipe we follow it fairly closely. After that, it is Bam! Bam! etc. We change, alter, kick it up/down a notch, etc. My wife has a tendancy to never cook something exactly the same way twice. Keeps it interesting and continues to expand the potential for a great dish!

Sometimes I use the recipe. Sometimes I alter it. Sometimes I make one up. Sometimes I combine ideas from different recipes.

I follow 95 % of the recipe.
I start off my weekly menu by going through books and magazines and internet searches for ideas, but by the time I get to the actually cooking, one ingredient might be missing or I only have 45 minutes to cook instead of 2 hours or I decide the recipe need more spices, etc. I almost always follow recipes for baking bread products.

I am terrible at following recipes, even the first time around. The one exception, as Lilac mentioned, when baking.

I follow recipes EXACTLY as written... to a fault. Just ask my wife. I tend to follow all directions.

I am a virgo.

Gee, Babnik, I'm a Virgo, and I have a rebellious streak a mile wide...but I think that's generally contrary to Virgo-ness.

1st time I follow the recipe, then I usually tweak it to my own tastes.

I rely heavily on recipees. Then when I've prepared the same dish a zillion times or so I begin to make my own tweaks. All about inexperience really. I have quite a few recipees memorized but given an egg, a pan and a zucchini I'd probably be stuck for hours trying to come up with something...

imo, recipes, for the most part, should only be used as an ingrediantial(is that a word?) guidline.

there are always substitutes for things that make them fit my taste.