Post Punk Kitchen Forum

I go through phases, I guess. There are times when I pull out a cookbook and go on a spree of making a bunch of stuff out of it, but most of the time I just pull out whatever's in the fridge and make something out of it. Including leftovers. Ha.

I love using cookbooks! Every week I go through what produce, etc. we have in the fridge that needs to get used before our next CSA pickup and I use my cookbooks to find things to make for the week with everything. Probably use recipes 4-5 times a week and then it's leftovers, out to eat, or throwing things together the rest of the time. Although I will also add that I am really bad about following recipes to the letter. I like to add more things, or sub ingredients I don't like. Even did that growing up when my mom was trying to teach me cooking basics. She used to get so mad at me when I would sub ingredients :) but why the hell would I put something in my food that I know I don't like, ha.

5-6 times a week. I don't like guessing and improvising. Failure tastes bad and gets expensive.

I wish more vegan cookbooks came in hardcover. I ding them up pretty quickly.

I have so many cookbooks & so little time! I'd use cook books more if I had more time to spend cooking new things. So tend to just use them when I batch cook at weekends.

I usually cook about 1-2 new cookbook/internet recipes per week and survive off the leftovers, as I live alone. Whenever I get bored of that, I make some easy meals that don't need recipes like salads, sandwiches, stir-fries, grain-veggie-sauce bowls, oatmeal, etc.

To start off 2012, I've been on a soup/stew kick; I predict more stew-y goodness for February as we got our first snow this morning.

When I first get cookbooks, I make a few items... and try to incorporate a recipe once a week. Unfortunately,it never works that way. They end up sitting on the shelf. I do use recipes sometimes, but for a specific meal I have in mind, so I tend to go online, unless I remember offhand the recipe is in a book I have.

This is me. I can easily fall into the habit of making the same thing over and over, but recently I realized I had a lot of cookbooks that I'd only made two or three recipes from. Now I try to make a new recipe every time I use a cookbook, and I mark it with an X in the recipe list*. There's something really satisfying about seeing a whole bunch of recipes marked off!

* But now I get even more annoyed when a cookbook doesn't have a recipe list (lookin' at you, Vegan Vittles)

I rarely cook without a cookbook, and then I feel disgruntled as it takes all the fun out of it... I guess I'm weird. I love following recipes because it feels like a game.

I have a lot of cook books and cook from them a few times a month probably. I feel like I have more faith in my own cooking intuition than written recipes, though, so most of the time I would rather be creative.

I chose 2-3 times/week because some nights are leftovers, takeout, or no-brainer meals. But most other nights are recipes from cookbooks. I find following instructions soothing!

it's really funny- some things, even after cooking 100 times, i still use the recipe. other things, i cook by taste. these tend to be things i was taught to cook by people, mostly people from other cultures- they taught me the technique, i guess, not amounts, and so i can just play it by ear.

This is me, except I don't share a kitchen. I just have a small, crappy, hard-to-clean kitchen that I hate.

I tend to wing it most nights of the week with whatever I have in the fridge. I do a lot of things like bowls and tofu scrambles. I do have a lot of cookbooks (taking advantage of my bookstore discount while I still work there), and I always intend to use them, but following a recipe takes a lot more effort for me, and I cook a lot slower using them, so I usually only do so when I've got a lot of time or really want to make something special (or I'm cooking for someone else). I really enjoyed the cookbook challenge, though, and when I have a bit more time, and have moved to a place with a nicer kitchen (which is happening in the next few months) I'm looking forward to using my cookbooks more.

is it weird that I find recipe blogs like Oh She Glows etc an online cookbook? I always cook with cookbooks. I'll tweak it but i'll write my tweaks in the book. i LOVE them :)

(I am amazed for those who cook every day. i cook once a week).

Nope! I throw in a blog recipe probably once a week or so.

If it's something totally new to me, I'll follow a recipe in a book. But if it's something yummy and I know I'll make again and again, I write the recipe down in my unfancy spiral binder so I won't have to hunt for the recipe and forget which book it's in.