Sunday Dinner: Recipe or No Recipe?

How often do you use a recipe when you cook? Me, not that often; if I’m baking then all the time. But, after cooking Sunday dinner with my mother, I realized we don’t often use a recipe.

Sunday Dinner: BBQ Pig Feet, Baked Beans and Potato Salad

People ask me all the time about recipes for the items that I cook throughout the week. Most of the time my response is “I don’t have one.” Usually, I don’t. I just cook sometimes I experiment with spices and other times I know what the ingredients are, I just don’t know the measurements.

Growing up in the kitchen with my family, I watched my mother, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and great-grandparents just add stuff to the pot. As I got older I started to ask about the measurements and how much is too much to put in certain dishes. The unanimous response for family ” I don’t know, I just pour and stop when it looks like it’s enough.” That right there is trial and error. I’ve learned a lot from the people in my family and have chosen to educate those that come after me. My challenge is to take one recipe at a time and write down the measurements so my younger relatives and children (when they come) can have them.

So often we learn things just by doing them. When it comes to showing others we have to figure out a way to do because there are no accurate directions. No recipe? No problem. But what do you do when a family member or friend wants a recipe for a dish that you make? I have had to make the dish again, recording the measurements just so I can give it to them or I end up making the dish then telling them to come to pick it up. But due to my schedule lately, I don’t always have that option.

Here’s to me recording all of my recipes that don’t have measurements to them!