I have a binder like that. It’s so full and so hard to find more durable replacements that I can actually afford that I haven’t added anything to it in a while, but it’s almost all downloaded recipes. (My own stuff I type up and put on my blog.)

Even if you could find to purchase some of the cookbooks at the library - they are often out of print.  I have a falling apart binder/copied Cheap Eats - a seasonal cheap entertaining cook book.  And I’m still looking for copies of a monthly small format magazine called “Good Food”  which had at least five menus with planning and grocery lists) for how to interweave the cooking steps (under 60 minutes) to have it all done at once - while experienced cooks may not need something like this, it was great for a beginner cook- and the recipes were absolutely delicious.  Since it was a monthly mag, it was also seasonal.

My problem with keeping a computer version is that since I gave up the laptop, printing seems wasteful and running back and forth to the computer (which is in another room) impossible.

Never consult my dead tree recipe books anymore: too many recipes on the internet to choose from.

Don’t even bother to print out. I don’t bake, so i can play with the recipes, and since there are usually a number of recipes for a particular set of main ingredients, I may borrow from one and substitute with the other. In fact, consulting a number of recipes on the same subject gives me a better sense of how I can play with ingredients without turning out a gloppy, unrecognizable mess.

Once I get a general sense of something that suits most of the ingredients on hand, even with computer in the other room, I adjust to what I’ve got and follow the steps, more or less.

Works for me.

Okay, you may have a horror of meat, but I churned out one great spicy pot roast, and an unconventional chili last week (each with vegetables as a major part of the dish.)

I cook up great batches, freeze smaller portions, and there’s always something in the fridge.

For instance, until I’d consulted a number of chili recipes on internet, I didn’t realize that the flavor could be beautifully layered beyond chili powder with cinnamon, oregano, thyme, paprika, cumin. (or chocolate!—according to some recipes—which I haven’t attempted yet, but I may try a mole first.)

Or those in combination could be used as a substitute for chili powder.

I’ve pretty much switched over to food blogs and websites. I used to use delicious to save bookmarks, but since the status of that service is now up at the air, I exported all my bookmarks (with tags!) to Springpad and I just use my iPhone to look up the recipes that I saved, so I don’t have to run back and forth to the printer and waste paper. I tag things pretty exhaustively, so it’s easy to locate a recipe. I’m pretty much past recipes at this point, anyway, but a friend just recommended The Flavor Bible, which is not a recipe book but a book that lists ingredients (say, chickpeas) and then complimentary flavors. So I think I’m going to get that and between that, and the Bittman iPhone app, I’ll be all set.

#4: judybrowni - I made some chili with cocoa powder in it. It gave it an extra richness. You just sautee it up in the base with all the other spices. I love chili because it’s flexible and hard to mess up.

Speaking of chili powder, I think I figured out how to make something. It’s this spicy yam and bean curd dish I got at a Chinese place here in SF once. I can’t even remember or find the place now and I’ve tried to replicate it before but it only turned out decent this time.
You cook a big yam until it’s done but still firm; you want to be able to cut it into cubes, which doesn’t work if it’s mushy. Cut that and a block of extra-firm vacuum-packed tofu into cubes.
Sautee the cubes with a couple cloves of chopped garlic in some oil.
Mix about 2-4 tablespoons each of brown sugar and soy sauce, a healthy pinch of cayenne (depending on how much spicy you can deal with) and about a teaspoon or two of chili powder. Mix that together and add it to the yam and tofu cubes.
In a separate bowl, mix two tablespoons of cornstarch with a half cup of cold water. Mix that into the works and then cover the pan let it sit so it all sweats together and gets saucy.
Goes with rice, obvy.

You can use a scanner or a digital camera or one of those cell phone cameras to take a photo of a recipe you like.  I keep a recipe folder in my dropbox with subfolders for cuisines

Given that my diet is so restricted (veggies, fruits, beans = have to avoid certain kinds and then have to cook the shit out of the good ones and eat in very small quantities; grains = mostly forbidden; nuts = iffy), the internet has been a lifesaver as far as finding good, edible recipes.  Of course, making foods like those I can eat ends up being kind of a pain in the ass, so I don’t do it much unless I seriously have to.  Also, I find that without a freezer and with just one of me, cooking is way more expensive than just buying a frozen dinner on my way home.  (Even when I had a freezer, I just ended up freezing things I never ate and threw out anyway, so I’m not sure if it was even cheaper then.)

I do still like looking at nice cookbook pictures, regardless of whether I’d eat it or make it.  Food porn is the best.

Sigh… ok, just a reminder here - not everyone has an i-phone, even if they do have a pc, and not everyone - like a large majority of those over 40 - is able to read from those tiny phone screens - particularly as the eyesight dims with age and even reading glasses.

addendum to above post:  but, msobel, that’s a good idea if the phone and the eyes are up to it.

judybrowni,

I always put cocoa powder (or sometimes unsweetened chocolate) and cinnamon in my chili.  It gives a real depth of flavor to it.  In fact, I need to make some chili soon—I’ve got a load of ground venison that my dad gave me in the freezer that needs to be used up.  Chili would be perfect for that.

Wow, today’s meal sounds and looks absolutely fantastic!  I too rely almost exclusively on the internet for new recipes, but the binder idea is really handy.  My sister and brother-in-law are weekday vegans/weekend vegetarians, and bro-in-law has a similar idea:  he organizes his recipes on a graph, with the x-axis going from “pure” (vegan, low-fat, fairly Spartan) to “impure” (cream sauce, lotsa cheese, rich, chocolatey, etc.) and the y-axis going from “easy” to “complicated.”  Not coincidentally, I always visit on the weekends, so I’m usually treated to something “impure/complicated!”

That looks really delicious!

I honestly can’t give up cookbooks because a lot of them make for good reading in and of themselves. However, I’ve been collecting them for so long it’s hard to walk in a bookstore and see something new and different…

So I’m curious. How many syncretist cooks are there here—instead of following a recipe, you read a bunch of recipes for the same thing and then just sort of do your own thing?

(Oh, and shameless self-plug: if anyone wants a good shepherd’s pie recipe, click on my name below…)

#14, I’m glad SOMEONE else does that! I thought I was the only one!

Heh. That’s why my binder has five paella recipes. Researching a new dish often looks like I’m studying for an exam.

I read a recipe and do my own thing mostly (baking excepted).  I have recipes for inspiration, especially with whole grains.  The book is helpful, since I tend to have ingredients and am trying to wedge them into food.

BrianX, I always do that too. Totally the way to go. (Assuming it’s a dish you’ve ever eaten before.)

Kitchen-sink bread again today: I put millet flour, beer, fried onions, and leftover doenjang soup in it. Somehow it just came out tasting like…good bread. Not even like onions! I am confused.

BrianX, that’s how I use recipes as well! I just like to get a rough idea of flavors and then I make up my own from there. I’m trying to be better at writing down recipes when a dish works out well.

phylosopher, yes, I was totally unaware that not everyone has an iphone, thx for the helpful reminder! It’s what I do to organize my recipe “binder,” so I shared that as people were sharing their strategies. Ooh, you know, some people don’t have access to printers, let’s lecture someone for mentioning those, or any other tech they might use that not everyone else has!

#14/17 I do that too; in fact, I frequently have to remind myself that there are actually people who follow the recipe and get worried if they can’t match things exactly.

I follow the “syncretist cook” method of #3 and #14 too.  Didn’t know there was a name for it.  I just look up a list of recipes online and get an idea of what’s common to all of them, take that as the core and change it to fit whatever I have available.  Actually not just for recipes but any other DIY project too.

I sometimes follow that syncretist method - lately been doing that to learn how to use agar agar, since I’ve gotten this weird impulse to make vegetarian jello and am just going with it. It’s one of those situations, my favorite kind, where the recipes I’m finding vary widely in their directions, so I know there’s some latitude in how you can handle the stuff. My first attempt, a coconut jelly, wasn’t very good flavorwise but the texture was great.

I will buy cookbooks these days to support cookbook authors I like, but I don’t end up using them very much.

Wow, I’m a “syncretist cook,” wadda ya know.

Before internet recipe comparisons I’d just keep throwing random ingredients into a pot—sometimes, right up until I’d made inedible muck.

Just looked up more recipes for sweet italian sausage stew, a standard winter dish for me. I’ve been varying ingredients on my own, it always turns out well, but comparing other sweet italian sausage recipes have given me more complementary herbs to throw in.

Nimravid:

There isn’t a name, really. I just made it up on the spot because it sounded about right.

BrianX wrote:

I have a binder like that. It’s so full and so hard to find more durable replacements

You can pick up three-ring binders in really thick sizes at WalMart for just a few bucks.  I have a couple at work which have a thousand pages of documents in them—I have to hold every cement receipt in place for the state to see—and one at home, in which I store all of my machinery manuals.

@ elena, you missed the rest of my post - contained in follow up - but part of it was tongue in cheek - because of past history here.  And a lot of it was my love/hate relationship with my blackberry wannabe phone 1/2 screen, and my new glasses.  Seriously, I’m actually thinking of getting a monitor just for the kitchen - don’t really need/want the computer in there (who wants food spills on the keyboard) , but it would be neat to be able to access a recipe and have it there as you cook, without having to handle even an iphone (food stuff on keyboard again (did I mention I’m NOT a neat cook - my kitchen looks COOKED IN, not pristine, after I make a meal?)

As for cookbooks - well I do tend to buy mine used - just found that cheap eats book since my binder version is falling apart, for like .98 cents plus $3 shipping - I can’t do a binder version for that.  I work at an office that has a binding (Gestetner) machine - so I do often take paper backs apart and rebind so they lay flat-the binding comb costs under $1.  And, I’m lucky to have a 4 foot shelf tucked in my kitchen that is pretty wasted space otherwise.

And yes, I do like to use cookbooks - while the weekends may work for creativity/experiment - not so much for the need to get food on the table in a hurry stuff - for the hungry offspring who while they may try an experiment - they’d better!- won’t eat the truly awful - and I need direction on the braindead/work got all my creativity days.  And many of the older cookbooks were of necessity seasonal - I even have great grandma’s “recipe a day” wedding shower gift cookbook- it has things like “cookies are great to serve at knitting parties for THE War”  though finding goose grease is sort of difficult these days.  Another book has recipes by month - it’s a reprint of a colonial era book. 

So I’ve appreciated Amanda’s more free wheeling approach to cooking and it has loosened up my cooking/substitution some - for which I’m appreciative.

I definitely use the syncretist method (love the name!).  I follow recipes precisely for baking and a few other things where you have to get the proportions exactly right (like crepes, frex).  Otherwise I either make it up entirely as I go along, or look at several recipes.  Every once in a while I’ll actually combine existing recipes into my own written recipe—the only example I can think of is the first time I made coq au vin.  I mostly went off of Julia Child’s recipe, but hers takes two days, and I didn’t have that long, so I used other recipes to adapt it.  But then after I make something once, I usually don’t have to look at a recipe to make it again (except for, as above, baking and so forth, and occasionally to get a rough idea of how long something is supposed to take).

This drives my father absolutely crazy.  He follows cookbooks to the letter.  They have an asparagus patch at the house, so in asparagus season he cooks asparagus several times a week.  Each and every time he’ll take out the cookbook, look up how long it says to steam it, and set the timer.  Then I’ll be cooking something and he’ll ask, “how long does that have to cook?”  Me: “Until it looks like it’s done.” (To clarify, I don’t live with my parents, but I live alone, so I usually go over there when I feel like doing some big cooking.)

A: You might want to check out Michael Ruhlman’s Ratio—it’s a companion volume to The Elements of Cooking that boils a huge whack of classical cuisine down to a page or so of proportions created by a chef at the CIA. It isn’t quite everything you need (Jacques Pepin’s Complete Techniques should be considered essential as well), but it’s quite remarkable how easy it makes cooking without a recipe.

synchretist could be a good descriptive term for what my spouse calls “Chinese adobo”, which incorporates both Chinese and Filipino cooking techniques in dealing with poultry.

It’s pretty simple:

For each lb of chopped-up or cut-up chicken

1/4th cup soy sauce(Kikkoman or a brand you like)

1 tbsp of a dry white wine or dry sherry, I’ve had excellent results with Riesling from Australia, YMMV.

1/4th a medium onion, chopped

fresh ginger root, all the ‘skin’ taken off, in a single piece so that you can discard it later after cooking

one clove, garlic, crushed

1/2 tsp, peppercorns.

2 tbsp peanut oil

Brown the chicken with onion, garlic, and ginger.  When brown, add the liquid ingredients and peppercorns, bring to bubbling and then turn down the heat, cover and simmer for 30 mins with occasional stirring.

Serve with rice.

The Chinese component is the use of wine, the Filipino recipe calls for palm-sap vinegar. 

The Filipino component is the use of the ginger with the skin, or outer root surface, removed, and the use of peppercorns instead of ground pepper as the Chinese version calls for.

Regarding the binder of recipes, I use plastic page protectors to hold my recipes in a binder.  I know, plastic isn’t green, but… I’ve had the same page protectors for a decade now.  They protect my recipes from food and water splashes, prevent tears in the pages (meaning they don’t fall out of the binder), and the ring punch holes make it easy to hang the pages from a tack or hook on the wall, visible where I’m cooking but out of the way.

A. wrote:

To clarify, I don’t live with my parents, but I live alone, so I usually go over there when I feel like doing some big cooking.

If you live anywhere near the Poconos, and want to do some big cooking, you’ll be welcome here! 

I never understood how anyone could get enough herbs from cute little potted herb plants to cook with, unless you only use them for garnish or something.

When I grew my own herbs I had 4 or 5 good sized plants of thyme, an 8’ row of basil, and 3 big parsley plants and it never seemed to be enough. I still have chives, since you can’t kill those even if you try, and in the spring when they’re at their best I mow down half a plant every day for eating.

@Brian (#14):

First time I make something, I tend to read a bunch of recipes then pick one and follow it closely (maybe subbing something that’s particularly problematic).  Second time around, I start tinkering.  Or not, if I found the original recipe particularly satisfying.

The exception tends to be when I’m making something to a request.  If it’s not something I’d normally make for myself, I don’t always have a real good feel for how it should come together, so I’ll just use the first reasonable sounding recipe I come across, rather than reading a bunch and choosing the best.  How do I know what’s best for something I don’t eat?  I’ll skip over obviously unsuitable recipes but that’s about it.

Just read some interesting things about using garlic in cooking at Michael Ruhl’s blog: that garlic should be minced 10-15 minutes before being cooked for the garlic flavor to blend chemically, and that onions and other aromatics should be sweated before garlic is added, so it isn’t overcooked.

But, no, I’m not going to bother to degerm every garlic clove.