Off-Roading a Recipe

Some cooks follow recipes scrupulously.  Measuring exactly, even weighing ingredients.  Testing temperatures and checking ingredients before embarking on a recipe.  These type of cooks probably subscribe to Cooks Illustrated and hold membership in Alton Brown's fan club.

I don't fall in this school of cooks - to many who know me this will not come as a surprise.  I substitute ingredients based on convenience, follow recipes loosely and have the philosophy that good ingredients combined together will likely have a good result.  This does not mean I mix genres of food and I do in fact like Cooks Illustrated, but I often take liberties in modifying recipes - twas the case when it came to trying my hand at homemade hot fudge.  I consulted several recipes - some on Pinterest and some off.  Some called for evaporated milk and others called for cream.  Some for unsweetened chocolate and others for cocoa powder.

I am sure there's some cooking science I am missing, but I promise when you are tasting gooey hot chocolate, you are not going to wish you had gone for the cream instead of the evaporated milk.  It's just good.  I couldn't even repeat what I made in my variation of hot fudge - it was a mix of what I had on hand - unsweetened chocolate with some cocoa powder, a little fat free half and half and some regular milk.  Stirring and cooking until the consistency looked hot fudge-familiar.

The point is - sometimes what we cook doesn't need an exact science.  Pinterest recipes and recipes in general are good in their own right.  But perhaps too they can point us to new combinations that we hadn't thought of or introduce us to new substitutions.  Take my friend, Brooke who discovered lime worked as good as lemon in concocting this yummy looking main dish.  Now my mother would warn that you don't want to vary too much but even so....sometimes cooking just needs a little flexibility in knowing that whatever you end up with will be satisfyingly good if you can trust the ingredients and the process.  That's good enough for me.

Any off-roading suggestions you have tried with a recipe worthy of sharing?

Upcycling

 

Pinterest is full of upcycling ideas...transforming the old into new, reclaiming what was once discarded.  You can transform light bulbs into flower vases, wine corks into a bath mat or a cheese grater into a pencil holder??!

While I appreciate the environmental conscientiousness that upcycling encourages, some of the ideas seem a little extreme and even like a potential for a mess (thinking moldy wine corks - yuck.)  Yet some of the ideas seem charming - a little bit of paint can transform some picture frames or an ikea dresser.  With a little help from my old favorite, mod podge, I got inspired to take on two projects - albeit revised from the original plan on Pinterest.  

Project 1 - Fabric mosaic.  With lots of fabric remnants leftover from various sewing projects, I had more than enough to tackle this fabric mosaic project.  I took a different spin though and made a stencil of the "letter" m and filled in the simple design using fabrics from various projects I used for my niece and nephew.  A couple of layers of mod podge later, it looks good enough to hang on their wall and remind them of their last name or their Mimi!

Project 2 -Rehabbed tray:  Cheap trays + craft paper + mod podge = an upcycled tray worthy of entertaining.  I had picked up a tray at a thrift store that is about the size of a large pizza and some craft paper showing the hot spots of Italy - the result a decent combo for rooftop entertaining.  

Pinterest Trial:  Fabric Mosaic

Review:  Make use of a fabric scraps with a cute result

Pinterest Trial:  Decoupage Tray

Review:  Cute but not perfect

My results: 

Project #1

Project #2