Thinking Outside the Recipe Box

A tired cook sees dinner as a
chore, and nothing makes cooking feel more like work than having to read,
measure and follow recipe instructions. But unless you want to eat the same five things over and over again,
you've got to find a way to tap into your cooking creativity to find new meals
without a recipe. I know all this because
it happens to me too. Tired, don't feel
like following a recipe, hungry, bored with same old stuff. So, here's what I do.

I start noticing how things
are put together when I do use a recipe instead of just blindly following. Let's say you're making beef braciole, where
you pound beef thin, bread it, fill it with cheese and herbs, roll it up and
braise in a sauce for a long time. There
you go. I just gave you a visual
recipe. That's all you need to know to
transform it. You could modify it into,
say, a Chicken Kiev sort of thing, or pork scaloppini stuffed with spinach or whatever you happen to
have on hand. This is the essence of sensory
cooking, and your ticket to a good meal fast, sans recipe. Now that I've given all my secrets away, I'm
going to rest. That was exhausting.