Way to go, TEB!

For example, would it seem odd to your SIL if the recipe called for 1/2 pound of chili powder?

Good for you TEB!

Two cups of Ex Lax and five boxes of prunes makes a nice vegan chili.

When it comes to cookies, especially lemon-flavored cookies is to give out a recipe that can't possibly work. In Penn and Teller's, "How to Play with Your Food," they have a lemon cookie recipe that explodes by step four when you add baking soda to the mixture followed by lemon juice (think baking soda volcano). I sent it out on email one April Fools to some friends, about 25% of them tried it. Got some death threats back, followed by good trick after they had cooled off plus a lot of, "I'm gonna give this to a friend!"

I've only had one friend look at the recipe and figure out what would happen, telling me, "Oh, that's so mean! Give me a copy of that."

TlalocW

from laughing so hard.

Just to be an asshole?

In that case, congratulations.

what a waist of time and energy.

Anyone can cook your chili recipe, but no one can make your chili. You hit on the reason, you adjust it on the fly for the current ingredients and conditions. My mom is a great cook, but she learned from her mother and grandmother that you add ingredients "until it is right". The only way to learn that is to do it, many times until you know what is "right" for something that is half cooked. My sisters , my brother and I didn't learn her cooking skills sadly. I'm an OK cook when I want to cook, but I rarely really cook as I'm only feeding myself. Good recipes make much more food than I need and I hate wasting food.

Is done by trial and error. You know when it is right.

Although they tell you baking is precise,it seldom is. I know the minute a cake is ready to come out of the oven by smell alone. Moist. One minute over can make a cake dry.

So, of course, I use it whenever a cake is mentioned.

Yup, I seldom check the oven until I smell the right smells. I've thought of capturing my Mom's recipes by weighing all the ingredients prior to her starting to cook and getting the amounts by subtraction afterwards, but between adding things on the fly and using them for other things during, I've given up. Add in the complications from adding stuff at multiple points in the process and there's little chance of getting a successful recipe just by writing stuff down.

I seldom get a piece to take home.

Perhaps you could make him a Peanut Butter pie!

Apparently that is a thing.

http://mentalfloss.com/article/64984/science-behind-why-people-hate-word-moist

Always thought my little brother was a little weird.

for supper. I called my mom and asked how to make waffles. Her reply. You have watched me.

Put enough flour in a bowl to make enough. Add a handful of sugar, pour baking powder in your hand until it looks to be enough, add a good pinch of salt. Put 4 egg yolks in another bowl and beat in enough milk to make it thin enough. Melt some butter and stir in. Beat the egg whites and fold them in.

I made waffles and that is how I have cooked ever since. If I look at a recipe it is just to see what goes into something, then I close the book and make it by how much I need and taste, add taste.

She had a big family of big eaters. Uncle Stan was a giant with hands the size of hams.

"Baci" would make a deep dish apple pie every day, baked in a lasagna pan. It was wonderful. Her flour measuring was to put the bag of flour under her arm and pump her elbow to force the flour out until "enough". She added sugar by the hand, and spices by sight. It was an honor to be her assistant and apple peeler. I doubt she ever owned a measuring cup.

Uh Oh, now I'm craving her homemade noodles <sigh>.

Unfortunately, my mother never watched her enough, and didn't inherit Baci's skills.

I have 3 grand daughters, ranging between 19 and 25 that come and spend their vacations at our house. Each time one of them is here for a week, it is to learn how I make something. When one of them arrives, they have a list of what they want to know in their hand.

Being raised in the country, all 4 of my 'girls' know how to can too.

when it didn't turn out right you could have said, "What else could you expect from a Fake anything?"

Side note: My mother was a great cook who could never, ever explain how her recipes - great cookies and bread , for example - came out so wonderful. She said you add and take away until it feels and looks right.

My brother-in-law isn’t book smart but a very good business man. He is very wealthy but his mind is polluted. He denies watching Fox but that is a lie. His common theme is that Dems are going to come and take his money. He took over his Father's construction company but begrudges anyone who may need help from the govt. I point out that my wife’s Father died when she was 3 years old in 1965 and she and her mother lived on his social security. My wife is a successful sales executive and has paid back social security 10 times over. It’s pure ignorance on his part. All wealthy righties fear the same thing, the govt will take their money and redistribute it to others. This is the Fox mantra

I have right wingers in my family. You are absolutely correct about their main fear.

My only prerequisite was that she not be a Republican.

I have lost many friends because they are such rabid right wingers.waste of time.

Excellent job.

while I was doing my homework at the kitchen table. She almost never consulted a recipe. I watched her. I asked a few questions. She was good at explaining why she did things as she did them.

Later, when I was out on my own, I started cooking, and all those lessons made learning how to do it a lot easier.

Now, I cook like my mother. I never look at recipes and just make food the way I want it to be. However, if someone asks me for a recipe for something I've served them, I can provide it. My written recipes are long and detailed. Some of my friends have made things from those long, detailed recipes, and they came out just fine.

I've learned that I can write my secrets into a recipe, but it makes those recipes long and detailed. Not everyone wants that.

The last major recipe I wrote up was one for a seafood pasta dish I made for close friends. One of them asked for the recipe. It took me most of the next day to write it all down. There was an entire page on preparing the sea scallops that were part of the dish. The entire process takes less than five minutes, but everything about it is absolutely crucial. I had to write down why it was done that way and why it was important not to vary from the process.

My friend said, "I could never make this." Knowing her, I think she's probably right. There's more to it all than just a recipe.

I'll bet her expression as you headed to the checkout lane was priceless!

I'd have these posted back at my HQ in Dallas, but people are allowed to carry guns back there.....