Recipes are like the Pirate Code. They're guidelines.

What Jessica said. Arr!

My sister called me this morning for my bread pudding recipe. She's leaving out the white chocolate. I'm horrified. Not sure if she'll do the water bath either.

I've got my grandmother's recipe for apple fritters, which is, "Peel and slice some apples. Mix with some flour, egg, and sugar. Fry." There may have been one other ingredient -- baking powder, maybe? But it was still just "some" of that. And I know that she put some cinnamon and ginger and a pinch of salt into these when she made them.

I'm with her on the white chocolate, but the water bath sounds important. Most things that cook in water baths do so for a reason.

Wow ita, from what it sounds like that's "deviating from the guidelines" a bit much for your pudding. Maybe you should have asked for a statement to be given to any guests that says "Based on a recipe..."

Too bad food seldom has credits.

Or maybe your sister prefers to be gastronomically deviant...

Plus? I bet your mom slow cooked it. Did you?

I was trying to. Like I said, I left the heat on too high.

Not to mention that the chances of her ever making it exactly as written are slim to none. Family recipes are like that.

Yeah, well I don't have enough experience to deviate from recipes. Following the recipe gives me enough problems.

The Christmas cookies I bake every year following her recipe turn out right, though, so that's something, I guess.

I only started using the water bath a few years ago. Don't think my mother ever did, not that she'd share such details with me. So it will be different, not broken.

But the white chocolate! Lends such a lovely note to the creaminess. I am replete with woe. She doesn't however, have access to fair trade white chocolate, so it's a principle thing, not a gastronomic choice.

Yeah, we never did bread pudding in a water bath. For values of "we" that equal "my father."

And I've never minded burnedy bits in the chili, if it's not too too bad.

I've never eaten bread pudding. One look at it and I figured I'd have texture issues.

I'm not a particularly inspired cook, but I usually only follow the recipe once and thereafter wing it (except with baking. The crucial measurements stick. The add ons, however...) Also, I have a tendency to want certain things that I can't get the traditional ingrediants for, so I make up stuff. Like my posole or when I make enchiladas. I don't have my friend's mom's to die for recipe, but I make do.

Also, I can be really lazy, so if there is a shortcut, I'll find it.

Tonight's dinner was a bad-for-you fridge dump. Egg noodles cooked in broth, toss in a corn/carrot/broccoli/babycorn blend I had leftover, oh, hey there is some sour cream left here and while I'm at it, a little shredded cheddar. Remarkably like camping dinners we'd make on the trail.

Kalsane--I scorched my mom's lentil soup recipe abnout the first, oh, 12 zillion times I made it. I finally learned the right burner settings for it and the other things I cook on a regular basis, but it took a looooooong time. Look at it this way, you are one pot closer to making perfect chili!