<p>I don’t consider myself to be a gifted or creative cook, but I can follow almost any recipe. I can estimate quantities, know when things have to be exact and when they don’t, how to chop and prep, and, thanks to the right equipment, cookbooks, and Youtube, a number of advanced techniques. I find that equipment and the quality of the ingredients can make a big difference. I splurge on things like spices, vanilla, olive oil, and balsamic vinegarette, for example. </p>
<p>I am not a gifted cook. No way, no how. But, I do have a pretty good memory and I sometimes read cookbooks the way others read novels. That helps when I’m faced with a refrigerator full of odds and ends and need to pull something together. I’ll remember enough of what Shirley Corriher or Ina Garten wrote and then improvise the rest. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, dh was dx’d with Type 2 diabetes this year and we no longer have desserts, bread, potatoes, rice or pasta. That wiped out nearly all of our favorites. No more jambalaya, twiced baked stuffed potatoes, pasta twice a week, or skier’s french toast, much less all of the rich desserts. These days, we mainly eat grilled or roasted proteins over a salad. That doesn’t take much skill. </p>
<p>^^Wow, Silpat. I have no idea what people with type 2 diabetes can and can’t have, but no potatoes or pastas at all? No sweet potatoes or pasta made from quinoa or gluten free or no carb pastas? Yikes, that would be difficult.</p>
<p>I feel as if baker’s use recipes more to the T. And post #39’s wife! 
It’s fun to improvise in cooking that baking doesn’t really allow for, since in baking measurements seem to be more precise.</p>
<p>@Hanna, I’m impressed with cooking tongue! I haven’t had it since I spent a gap year if France. I thought it was perfectly edible, but I hated the way it looked cooking! </p>
<p>I usually use recipes, but I often end up making substitutions. But I can certainly ad lib a stir fry or a soup when I’m in the mood.</p>
<p>No one in our house has diabetes, but dh went low carb years ago so I rarely cook potatoes, pasta or rice. I don’t really miss it. I eat them at restaurants and parties.</p>
<p>@chocchipcookie: Many people with T2D do eat carbs, at least in moderation. The ADA seems to base its recommendations on what people are likely to stick with long term rather than what will bring down A1C levels quickly to a healthy range. We miss pasta and desserts a lot, but not enough to risk the negative results. By consuming <50 grams/carbs/day, dh was able to cut his A1C in half and he feels much better. Now I just need to stop indulging myself whenever dh is away.</p>
<p>Mathmom, we have friends who also say they don’t miss carbs. I wish I felt the same. Proteins and veggies have never appealed as much as sweets. I only whine about it here, though.</p>
<p>But the most important thing I need to ask @Silpat is, Please provide the recipe for skier’s french toast!</p>
<p>I think I see a trend here, the good ad lib cooks are not good bakers & vice versa. I am an excellent baker and a pretty good cook. I do follow recipes and I even write down my own recipes, I love to find recipes online and then tweak them, but then I write down all my tweaks so I have a record and can recreate it. I do not look at the frig and come up with something magically, I hate trying to decide what to make, but I love to make complicated and interesting things & to try new seasonings and new sauces.</p>
<p>I do find it more difficult to cook outstandingly something that I don’t like, because then I cannot tweak and taste and improve.</p>
<p>I think the bakers being obedient to the recipe thing sounds like the thing that makes the difference, I feel like a cook “on the spectrum” and I need to write down everything, for a big fancy meal on a busy day like Christmas I will write down what time everything goes into the oven, etc.</p>
<p>@somemom, I do the same thing with something that has many parts that need to end at the same time. I usually write out my schedule backwards, by starting with the time I want to sit down and working backwards. </p>
<p>Because I do that, I wind up putting the turkey in the oven at, say, 10:00 AM – an eminently reasonable time. I never understood those apocryphal women who had to get up at 3:00 AM to put the turkey in the oven – unless they were cooking a 50-pound turkey.</p>
<p>2 tablespoons light corn syrup
1/2 cup butter
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 (1 pound) loaf unsliced white bread
5 eggs
1 1/2 cups milk
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
Directions
Combine light corn syrup, butter and sugar in saucepan; simmer until syrup-like. Pour mixture over the bottom of a 9"x 13" pan.
Slice bread into 12-16 slices; place over the syrup. Layer as needed.
Beat together the eggs, milk, vanilla, and salt. Pour over bread. Cover with saran wrap. Refrigerate overnight.
Bake in a preheated oven 350 degree F (175 degrees C) for 45 minutes.
Cut into squares. Invert and serve.</p>
<p>Great, another recipe to ignore! </p>
<p>/just kidding I do something similar but no corn syrup. </p>
<p>Oh my. That sounds divine. </p>
<p>To time a big Thanksgiving I also have to write down what goes in the oven when. Otherwise I’d be too frantic that day to figure out how to rotate the ovens. Also no idea why people get up at 3 for a turkey, but that is probably why we grew up thinking turkey was so dry. </p>
<p>@mathmom, tongue is really easy to cook – it just boils all day. Granted, it’s pretty intimate to peel it at the end. This is fundamental Jewish soul food, though. My parents insisted on coming to dinner when they found out I had a tongue in the freezer. :)</p>
<p>Funny to think of it as Jewish. I always think of it as French. And yes Madam, just boiled it forever too.</p>
<p>@VeryHappy, I’m glad that Somemom posted her recipe because I’ve never written mine down and just sort of eyeball the amounts. </p>
<p>I used French bread or Challah, depending on how indulgent I wanted to be, cut very thick. I skipped the simmering and just poured (real) maple syrup (instead of corn syrup) over the bottom of a 9 X 13 pan, liberally sprinkled that with light brown sugar plus about a tablespoon of cinnamon, then dotted that mixture with a stick of butter (not margarine) cut into cubes. My late MIL used half n’ half but I used whole (Lactaid) milk with 5 - 6 eggs + the vanilla and a pinch more cinnamon, following the same steps as Somemom. The next morning, I’d bake it for about 30 minutes covered with foil (buttered so it wouldn’t stick) on 350, then removed the foil and baked for another 20+ minutes until golden brown. </p>
<p>I’d be embarrassed to tell you how few people could finish a pan of skier’s French toast at our house. We usually had this on Christmas and still managed to eat a generous serving of bûche de Noël after supper that evening.</p>
<p>Of course we are better–just as our children are perfect :)) </p>
<p>One of my first memories of cooking–I was in 7th grade and my mother called me on the phone from her work and walked me through making fried chicken. I was a natural and ended up making at least 3-4 dinners a night until I left for College. The only thing I used a recipe for was cookies. Cakes always came from a box, right?</p>
<p>I am actually known for my cooking which I find interesting as there are so many things I have never tried such as cooking a lobster. I was vegetarian for 35 years and just cooking meat the last 4. Wow, what a new learning curve!.
I purchased a 6 lb rack of pork with no idea what to do with it the other day. Found a good recipe and so will be making that on Friday.
I follow a recipe exactly the first time and then adapt it. Unless it is Contessa and them I follow it to the letter. Her food is amazing but leaves no room for personal ideas.</p>
<p>Now give me anything in your frig-- pasta or rice and I am better than good to go.</p>
<p>HATE baking. Make two things a year for the Holidays and wouldn’t you know–that IS what everyone expects–my secret Pumpkin Bread that is the best. I make 2 dozen and that is the gift to friends.</p>
<p>Cookies are SO tedious!</p>
<p>Tongue prepared as a stew or soy sauce style was one specialty my Chinese dad made very well.</p>
<p>My mother made tongue. I couldn’t stand the concept. I haven’t seen tongue in – oh, must be 50 years now.</p>
<p>To my fellow cooks who don’t follow recipes, do you ever make something experimental that turns out great , only to forget how you made it ?</p>
<p>If something is really great, I try to write it down before I forget it. I also make notes in my cookbook - things like “Good but it needed more x.” or “I didn’t have shallots, but it was fine with leeks”. Or in a vegetarian cookbook - “This lasagna was great with sausage.”</p>