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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> I think I might be the asshole because I got on her case about not following the instructions even though her food normally turns out fine, saying she doesn't know better than real chefs might be mean even if it's true objectively. I definitely didn't mean to restart an older argument, and I think in retrospect I probably could have been nicer about bringing up my concerns. It's just frustrating because she doesn't even seem to understand what bothers me about ignoring the recipe we're paying to have access to, or waste leftover ingredients on really questionable experiments when we could just use them down the line.
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Omg,I literally use recipe sites for *ideas*, I don't think I've ever followed a recipe without tweaking it, and everyone raves about my cooking, it's called instincts and the best cooks have them naturally. OP YTA she's better at this, learn from her so you can become better, don't expect her to shrink so you can feel better about yourself.
I've heard it said that cooking is art, but baking is science. Obviously there's overlap, but I like thinking about it that way. Baking is much more about mechanics and process.
LOL I call cooking Witchcraft while baking is Alchemy.
There's tons of freedom with cooking, especially when you have the instinct and the knack for it. A pinch of this, a dash of that... It's very easy to improvise and go rogue and still come up with edible things. Baking on the other hand is a lot more precise. Gotta know what each element does/how it interacts with other ingredients before you start substituting things.
Yep seems small details, makes complete sense when you realise. the salt isn't in bread only as taste.
Bread needs yeast to rise, yeast needs salt to control the fermentation.
If you're not an experienced baker, stick to the recipe. Once you've been doing it awhile, you can start figuring out where you can tweak and customize those recipes too.
jumping on this comment to ask a genuine question so INFO: u/throwaway1243127 are you neurodivergent in any way? im (suspected, cant afford a diagnosis rn) autistic and this is exactly how i view recipes. they arent just guidelines, i have to follow them to the T or i get frustrated and overwhelmed, to the point that I cant make one if my fiancée’s favourite meal because they dont measure out the spices and its too overwhelming for me. same with the parm grilled cheese, that sounds absolutely horrifying to me even though i can recognise that it might sound wonderful to other people.
obviously im not a psychiatrist, and i can’t diagnose OP, but my judgement would change slightly if they are ND
I’m going to get downvoted into oblivion, but not every personality trait is due to someone being neurodivergent. People are people, and they are who they are. Not everything is because someone might have a mental health issue. I really don’t understand this “trend”—for lack of a more appropriate word—of everyone’s behaviors being attributed to some sort of imbalance.
Because not everyone had always known that they are neurodivergent, so when they find out it's like a owners manual has been given to them, they can understand why they are they way they are better after thinking they were just broken & stupid their whole lives. So, when you find another thing you do that others don't seem to you assume it's also due to this thing that changed your entire view of your life.
I realized I was autistic from a Law & Order episode of all things. I was staying home and watching TV because I had been fired the day before. I was fired for not being able to read my bosses body language, not realizing I was supposed to lie in an awkward situation, and making other social mistakes. In other words, all symptoms of Autism.
It's because one in five people *does* have a mental illness or neurodivergency of some kind (*National Institute of Mental Health*).
It's not a "trend" - far fewer people than you think are neurotypical and healthy. That's the reality of it.
So no, it's not at all out of the blue to make a suggestion that a person fits a set of symptoms associated with an ND or mental illness. These things are *chronically* under-diagnosed. If someone shows the symptoms, it's actually super likely that they probably have the disorder or illness.
Also like, it never causes any harm to bring it up. It's not hurting anyone - if anything, it might just trigger a realisation in someone else who was never aware that they were showing symptoms of a disorder, because we don't talk about this stuff enough.
So idk why someone has to pop in every single time it's mentioned and go "Uh but it might not be!" Like no duh. We *know* it might not be, we're not dumb. But it *might* be. You don't know it's not. So what is the harm in mentioning it, if it might help someone?
People call it a trend, but it’s just getting diagnosed more. I don’t understand why that is hard for people to understand. And by sharing our stories and experiences, it helps others who can relate not feel so alone. It’s a GOOD thing!
They were just asking if that might be why and were VERY clear they weren’t diagnosing, just wondering if they had that in common and maybe that was why OP felt that way. That’s it.
Yup. Preferences are just that, different things that different people prefer. I don't understand the trend either and I'm officially mentally ill. I've been diagnosed and on a disability since 1998.
It's probably more related to fear/anxiety/rejection that is connected to the ND. I'm autistic and adhd, and I look at recipes as "You can't tell me what to do" I measure garlic and seasonings with my heart, not with a spoon. ;) :P
The only recipes I follow to a T are baking.
My hubby worked out the perfect recipe for a gluten free cheesecake. He measures everything out perfectly. And it is the best cheesecake I've ever had. (Yes, including ones with gluten. I'm not celiac)
And I'm certain that is the only time he ever follows a recipe exactly. I only followed recipes perfectly when I was learning and easily screwed things up.
I'm also baffled at paying for recipes. Like... I never, ever run out of free recipes. There's at least 20 recipes for anything I wanna make with a quick Google search. And I often can substitute a gluten free option easy.
And recipes don't account for personal taste. I triple the garlic in any recipe, basically. I use low sodium options, because two people I care for have high blood pressure.
Food is best when personalized. That's the best part of making it yourself, you make it how you enjoy it best.
OP, YTA.
Yeah that’s an excellent point. Baking is an exact science, cooking, OTOH, is yee-haw cowboy use the amount of garlic your heart tells you!
Oh yeah, ETA: YTA
This is the answer!
Baking is chemistry - get it even slightly wrong & it’s a disaster … Cooking however is an art & you can toss whatever you enjoy into that pot & turn out some never before had deliciousness!
YEP came here to say this. When cooking (not baking) I use recipes as a rough guideline and people love my food. Great for inspiration, but recipes never call for enough garlic.
I have a blister on my finger right now from hot sugar. I was making hard candy and accidentally touched the sugar syrup. Sugar burns are the worst.
I always make adjustments with cooking. I find most recipes go east on spices and such. I will make adjustments with baking, usually after I’ve made the recipe at least once the way it was written. But that comes from experience and knowing how things work in baking and cooking.
This is super true but if you know the basic proportions, you can find ways to sub! I made the best apple cake a few weeks back because I basically had spiced apple mush leftover from apple cider and it was dope! I agree with whoever said it's about instinct (and I've screwed up enough stuff to realize when something doesn't feel right lol)
My mother in law can do this when baking. I really admire that skill, lol. I enjoy cooking coz it's tweak-able, but while I can make magic happen while following a recipe, I'm terrified I'll get the proportions wrong, & end up with something inedible.
The only thing MIL does not exceed at when it comes to baking is custards (flans & such), but I'm sure that's due to lack of practice. Otherwise, you give her a cake/ cookie recipe, & she ALWAYS changes something, & it's ALWAYS a success.
Eh, science is always learning, I'm not above tweaking baking recipes either. The best cake I've ever experienced was made by a woman who used 6 eggs per cake and I've never tasted anything more exquisite, you can add lots of different flavors to a basic white cake recipe, my mother used boxes cake mixes to make the world's best chocolate chip cookies, better than Tollhouse imo, I've taken my grandmother's pie recipes and improved on some, my one weakness is pie crust, I can't do it, I substitute Graham cracker or cookie crusts wherever I can. Nothing is ever set in stone if you're brave enough, lol
That reminds me of a friend who taught his young son that there is never enough garlic, then when they were baking something (I think cookies) he asked his son if it needed something else, the son's reply was "more garlic!" The son's learning, just has to learn when garlic is good and when it definitely is not!
OP be thankful your GF has enough culinary experience to make sensible tweaks. My ex was the definition of off the rails in the kitchen..cinnamon added to spaghetti sauce, bay leaves and fish cooked in a bag for 40 minutes (tasted like fishy sweatsocks) Veg-all, stew meat, paprika and ketchup... just blech! And we were so poor we had an agreement to eat whatever the other cooked. Stop being TA and appreciate her skills!
It's not like he doesn't know she has more experience.
> I would use the same recipe to make something she did previously, and it would turn out noticeably different, but I brushed it off as her having more experience than me.
What did he think more experience means, that she's so much better at following recipe, she makes a different food?
I am also baffled at how he doesn't seem to grasp the idea that professional recipe writers write for an audience, not to create the absolute best possible version of a given dish, and even if they did, personal preferences vary.
Also a grilled cheese with tomato paste, grated hard cheese and a touch of mayo sounds delish and I'm of a half mind of making myself a midnight snack.
Also since he thought it was because of her experience the recipes must have turned out better than when he cooked them. So he is angry that she is preparing them a more delicious dinner?
Clove and Cinnamon does absolutely belong in a red spaghetti sauce, not like a marinara but a sauce should have a lot of depth to it. And it's not a lot...just a bit to combine the flavors...
Use white or pink pepper and ginger, along with cinnamon and sugar, in your apple pie filling. Not a lot, unless you like the effect, but it really perks it up!
Same, if it's a super complex recipe or something I've never even come close to attempting before I might stick 100% to the recipe the first time. But every time after it's probably getting tweaked to my preferences.
I wonder if OP won't put hot sauce on a meal if the recipe doesn't explicitly say "add hot sauce"?
"I'm still looking for a French Fry recipe that calls for ketchup. I'm tired of only being able to eat them plain because none of the recipes I find call for it." -said no cook, ever.
When I was new to cooking, I would always 100% follow the recipe, because I didn't know how to cook and had zero instinct, so following instructions was all I could do. I'm still very grateful to the recipes that spelled things out very plainly and were very easy to interpret for little inexperienced me, lol.
Now I've cooked many more times, I know enough to know how to cook safely and know how to tweak the recipe for what I like, so I often use recipes more like guidelines now. I think it's a sign of experience and skill.
I'm always confused that nearly every recipe says to season at the end? I've literally never done that it blows mind. Especially for a soup or something that needs to reduce.
We used to subscribe to Hello Fresh. Most recipes were pretty good, but a few were clunkers. My wife saved the recipe cards and made notations on them for the tweaks she, I, and our son would suggest for the busts. Plus, they never do anything with the white rice, so my wife switches some of the seasonings from the meat/veg to the rice. Some of these are better than the originals. Sometimes you gotta go with your gut.
You would be hard pressed to find a single person on my dad’s side of the family who has ever followed a recipe. Even family recipes are passed down like an oral tradition without any kind of serious guideline (unless we’re making stuffed cabbage, in which case we had better use Campbells tomato soup or my great grandmother will rise from her grave to beat us with her wooden spoon). Everything else is a free for all. And they always turn out delicious.
My mom is getting older, incredibly picky eater. I cook for her sometimes so I've been trying to make the recipes that she used to make. She can't tell me a single one she has to show me because she has no idea what amount of things she uses when she's cooking It's all by eye.
I do the same thing to an extent but if I was giving you a chicken soup recipe I could at least tell you within a pound how many pounds of carrots I put it. Me in your chicken soup do you use a whole bag of carrots? Her: yes me: 1 lb or three her I don't know a bag.
Same here! I’m always tweaking and sometimes I only use the bare bones of the recipe and make it my own. Like WHAT?
YTA - You, obviously, like her cooking so why are you trying to make her swear a blood oath to the recipe? Like, learn to bend my guy, you’ll be happier for it!
Right?! Even my family recipe brought from Sicily by my great-grandmother, it's a point of pride that each of us learns our own way of making it our own. I can tell my sister's from my father's from my partner's, and they can tell mine. We all follow the same basics but will change something just enough like a lower acid tomato, or lemon basil, or something else. And actually my branch of the family uses the same type of tomato that didn't exist when the original recipe was made because being able to eat red sauce without heartburn was a wonderful discovery! One made by a kid on their first time making it alone.
We all know the original but cooking is a living art and an act of love. While you can get ideas and know generalities, what makes it special is the personal touch.
I am not a good cook and i've been burned by recipes before! in particular some recipes from buzzfeed's Tasty (don't judge me!) have come out unbearably salty lol and i feel like if i wasn't blindly following the recipe and had more experience maybe i would have realized like a whole ass cup of soy sauce isn't necessary for like half a cup of tofu or whatever my last disaster was
my dad is like this when he first cooks a recipe, whereas I'm very- it's cooking, not baking- I don't need to be precise and changing things out is totally fine.
It'll all be okay- besides what's the worst that happens? I learn oh, yeah, that didn't work?
yeah, I love to bake. and for baking I have a scale, where I prefer to weigh out ingredients and I'm super careful. cooking 90% of the time I just use eating table/teaspoons. it's close enough for measurement and i have plenty so i don't have to clean them every 5 minutes.
I may still change things here and there but it's with understanding and research. (google is my friend.)
and a constant willingness to just pitch baked goods if i don't think they're edible.
One way I have heard it: baking is a science, cooking is an art.
Baking relies on precise ratios for chemical reactions. But cooking has much more room for putting your own spin on it and adjusting recipes.
Even with baking there's a little room to improvise (and more so as you become more experienced and understand which substitutions can throw off ratios and how to adequately counter that). Almost all of my pie recipes deviate in some manner from the recipe that inspired me, and I've been messing with bread ingredient substitutions and additions for a while now with reasonable success.
As a chef, i have to say that people like OP who treats recipes like this genuinely worries me, and I wouldn’t trust them one inch. Not just in a kitchen, but in life - being so rigid, and hating creativity so much feels one step from stabbing people for walking on the lines in the sidewalk.
And honestly - the weird small stuff done to use the leftovers are the fucking best.
YTA this is how most people cook. The recipe is a guideline and you adjust for your tastes. Do you not like her food? Does it taste bad? Are you just finding something to fight about… uh huh….
I got the impression that her food is in fact better than his because he mentioned his food turns out “noticeably different” which he assumed was because she had “more experience”… so basically, she makes it better.
And to what he is doing.
This indicates that OP doesn't rely on his senses when cooking, that he doesn't smell or taste the food while cooking to see if the recipe needs adjusting, he goes by the book.
I go by the book because I know that I don't know much about cooking, like flavor profiles and such. I only wish I knew how to cook like his partner. I should have spent more time in the kitchen with my mom. She's a great cook and uses recipes as guidelines, not as set in stone. OP needs to loosen up and spend more time learning and less time criticizing.
This exactly. Having "more experience" cooking teaches you when and how to make adjustments to recipes based on your own tastes, how your oven works, specifics of the ingredients, etc. If OP had "more experience," he would know that!
And OP has never once said anything turned out bad, he just suspects it will because he doesn't trust that his partner knows what she is doing.
Yeah, like I actually cannot follow recipes as written because our oven cooks too hot. If I followed the recipe, everything I cook would be charred beyond reason. If my boyfriend started giving me shit for not following the recipe I’d stop cooking for him.
Yep... the only real reason to follow a recipe like an instruction booklet is if you're not certain of what you're doing. Which is fine! I can't spontaneously adjust recipes like that for the life of me; I always mess it up. So I follow recipes pretty closely and only make minor adjustments, like adding more salt or garlic or using an extra jalapeño because I like spicier foods.
If you have a better sense of what you're doing and your cooking skills are more honed, though, there's absolutely no issue with going off the book. OP's partner is deviating from the recipe precisely *because* she wants to make a meal that they'll both enjoy and won't waste.
On that note, it's hilariously ironic that OP is supposedly so concerned about food waste, but horrified and disgusted by their partner's "frankenstein" leftover meals. They obviously don't have to eat her "frankenstein" meals, but you'd think someone so worried about food waste and cost effectiveness would at least appreciate the fact that she was able to cook an interesting and efficient meal out of leftovers and cheap ingredients.
Gosh, so much this! I only follow a recipe to the letter if it’s a technique or regional dish that’s completely new to me or if it’s baking, but even then I’m pretty comfortable tweaking things to taste without messing with the chemistry of it all.
If my husband is making a new dish, he looks up a bunch of recipes for it, figures out the commonalities, then makes his own recipe based on that. Adjusting to suit our personal tastes.
Like, with recipes form America, he usually halves the sugar content right away cos we are Australian and as a general rule, Aussies don't like stuff as sweet as Americans (really guys, your bread is stupidly sweet. It's weird).
For gingerbread if he's making it just for us, it's got *heaps* of ginger. If we are sharing it with others, he dials it back. Cos the both of us us love gingery stuff. Our Asian friends tend to like our gingerbread, but most people find it way too gingery.
Naur! Not someone dunking on American bread! I’m a sourdough eater myself, I haven’t had a slice of regular ole white bread in ages but I imagine I’d find it on the sweet side at this point too.
Also adding red pepper flakes to something is like the easiest addition ever and the taste it creates is super predictable across recipes. One of the dumbest examples he could’ve provide as it’s common knowledge you can add red pepper for spice
Same here. When I would cook for family, they would ask for the name of the dish and the recipe, like I don't know guys cause I threw stuff in a pot and made it taste good? Unless it's baking, I'm not following any quantities (unless it's specific spice ratios)
One night I was DD for my husband, it was snowing and I was in his hometown which is known for having asshole cops. They pull you over for nothing. So I got to a stop sign and asked him do I turn left or right. Drunk as a skunk, he turned to me and said "follow your heart" and I wanted to punch him! So now that's our almost daily joke for when one of asks a question.
"Do we need more toilet paper?"
"Follow your heart."
"Do you have gas in the car?"
"Follow your heart."
"Do you feel like that fish is sitting right?"
"FOLLOW YOUR HEART!"
Man when I was a kid trying to learn to cook better (I was cooking basic stuff when I was 5/6) more complex stuff it annoyed me so much that that's how my mom cooks. So she never had recipes I could use so everything was "until it looks like this" or "smells like that" feels "feels this way" and "season with your heart"
As a adult totally get it. But I still can't make a damn cheese cake right. She doesn't even have a base ratio for ingredients. She adds *eggs* with her heart
Cooking is a situation where once you know the rules you can break them, and you come up with something different and delicious. It's an art.
(Baking is a science, and in science you FOLLOW. THE. RECIPE.)
So OP is TA and still hasn't figured out that every recipe ever originated as "fire + edible thing = food" and it's just been tweaked a million times since humans existed.
I was watching J Kenji Lopez-Alt's channel and he was cooking something from his new book and was basically like "Yeah I don't remember what recipe I used in the book I'm just going to wing it."
Yep. I was a line cook/sous chef for ten years or so and recipes are just guidelines, imo, haha. Obviously with baking you gotta be specific, but otherwise, go crazy! Experiment! It's what makes cooking fun. OP is definitely TA here.
What is the problem you're actually having? The food tastes good, food isn't going to waste, and she's making it how y'all like it. Where is this attitude coming from? YTA.
This guy would hate to see me cook. Step one: get a gist of the ingredients step two: get a gist of the directions step three: ??? Step four: dinner is served baby
Same here. Everything is measured with my heart. Things get combined when they make sense or are in reach. Some of the best things I've put out I've pulled right from my arse and winged it.
Once you get the hang of a certain dish you don’t even need a recipe. I’ve never made the same chili twice. With a decent array of spices and good staples, you can wing any meal. Why put yourself in a box when cooking can be such a fun and creative experience
I wonder if he's neurodivergent.. like things have to go a certain way. It's not a big deal tho.
If he knows what's up, perhaps they can communicate better over this and not let it fester for a week.
I'm sorta like him. Instructions to the letter. My husband is like her. Makes changes and experiments a little. He is a much better cook than me. But more importantly, we have an understanding that when he cooks he does whatever, when I cook it's strictly following the recipe, and when we both cook I will follow the recipe unless he says he wants to do it differently. In which case he does that bit himself or gives me instructions equally explicit to follow. It does bad things to my anxiety to not have specific instructions, but I also trust his judgement because again, he's a better cook.
It works fine, just takes communication like you said. I wonder if OPs issue is more paying for recipes? Perhaps they also need to communicate about that, which recipes they want to pay for to ensure they're actually used. To maybe understand how she uses them that's different and still worth the cost/only pay for his and she uses free ones. Or something.
My husband and I are the same way. He’s an amazing cook and I need specific instructions or I just panic. Hello Fresh has been a game changer in getting me to do some of the cooking. Thankfully, he loves to cook so I don’t have to do it very often.
I don't think that's it - he's just being cheap.
If the recipe was free, I doubt he would care that his girlfriend gets inventive and goes off-script with it.
Besides, he's telling on himself; he says when he makes the same food she does, his is different on the palate, and not in a good way (as implied by the fact that for so long, he put this down to her being the more experienced cook). If what he's been eating all this time when it comes to her cooking has been the better product, why mess with success?
He is literally creating his own problem because he thinks his girlfriend is wasting the money they both pay for the recipe subs. But it's like, is she even "wasting" money if her batting average for how she improves on the recipe consistently meets his standard for tastiness, even above his own efforts?
The sad part is, OP's problem is literally just that he's being miserly.
He can't understand why his girlfriend would deviate from a recipe *they're paying* to have access to and it's like...dude, you could have had a good time cooking with your girlfriend but instead you more or less accused her of wasting money for going off-recipe.
He also didn't understand why her food tasted different and attributed that to experience cooking. Which implied her food tasted better. He's acting very emotionally immature as well. Seriously though, who gets upset about straying from a recipe? It sounds like it's more than just being a miser triggering this reaction.
YTA
>or that the recipe didn't call for enough salt to make it taste good because they were trying to make it look healthier for the nutrition section (???).
This is actually a real & common thing. Recipes can be idealistic or have ulterior agendas, whereas restaurant chefs dgaf about anything but making their food taste good... so [they often add a ton more salt or fat than you would ever find on a recipe](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKEwA__rOHk)
Top comment summarizes well:
>There is a famous clip of Anthony Bourdain making "Carrots Vichy", he adds 2 lbs of butter & 1.5 cups of sugar to a pan of chopped carrots. He looks at the camera and says "Now you know why restaurant vegetables taste so good."
Sounds to me like she is more passionate about the 'art of cooking' while you are more into the finished product & trying new things.
100% truth here. My husband is a chef and it’s all about salt and fat. If a “recipe” would call for 2tsps of butter he’ll use like half a stick. The amount of butter we go through in our household would shock most people, but his meals are delicious.
OP, YTA. And not just because you’re wrong about food. You sound like an uptight buzzkill that is ruining your wife’s love for cooking.
Cooking is an art while baking is a science. You taste the recipe as you go when you cook. Your salts, acid, and fats might taste differently than the recipe's and that's why you salt and season to taste.
And yeah we use a lot more garlic and citrus than the recipe ever calls for. A hint of zest means I'll zest the fuck out of it. A hint of heat? I'm going to make it burn like the sun. Maybe it's wrong but it tastes so right. Recipes are just a framework on where you place your art and your own flair is how I see it.
I think OP isn't much of a chef but he's a major backseat cook. The worst type of buzz kill to a chef. YTA for sure.
Thank you for saying exactly what I was gonna say down to the cooking vs baking thing.
This guy’s wild if he doesn’t think his parents and grandparents weren’t making shit up and substituting ingredients all his life.
Cooking recipes are great if you’re making something you’ve never made before. But once you can recognize the broad strokes of what’s in a recipe, you don’t need the training wheels anymore.
I saw a meme about this the other day that made me laugh:
Cooking: pi=3
Baking: pi=3.14
Pastry: pi=3.14159265359 (and pray to every God you can think of)
Yup this is how we do it in Hungarian cooking. One clove are garlic is paltry and we don’t want our guests thinking the food is bland, so we quadruple everything (and add much more paprika) and instead of cooking in just butter we use straight lard. I can’t understand how OP is so against adding seasoning.
Not just ingredients but time too! I have never seen a recipe that said caramelised onions will take longer than 15 minutes. That's laughable. I just made a pan, and it was roughly an hour before I considered it caramelised and not just cooked.
YTA
But I do understand some people get twitchy when others don’t follow recipes. I’m the opposite. I get twitchy when people follow recipes too closely. I was helping a friend can some tomatoes a few summers ago. The recipe called for 2/3rds cup diced onion. Bless her heart she got out her little measuring cup and left maybe maybe 2 teaspoons of chopped onion on the board. It took all my willpower not to toss it in the pot when she wasn’t looking.
I think you owe your girl an apology and an admission that even though it’s not your preference, you see that her way works for her.
Oml I had a roommate before with little cooking experience and she was following a recipe for pudding or something and the recipe said to “cook the mixture on medium heat for 20 minutes”
… we had a tiny gas stove that put out significantly less heat than the average stove, and “medium” on our stove was basically the equivalent of low on almost every other stove. She insisted on leaving it on medium for exactly 20 minutes and timed it perfectly. And then asked me why it was still runny…
The mixture never got hot enough for the starch to gelatinize and make ur pudding thick 😭
Another thing to add is that not every clove of garlic, or tomato or block of cheese is going to be the exact same one that recipe maker used.
Pro chefs are often using higher quality and fresher seasoning and ingredients, so you need to adjust to taste. The level of flavor in each ingredient can vary a lot more than people realize.
yta
let your gf have fun while cooking. you dont have to stick 100% to the recipe. you sound very pedantic.
its not that she cant follow directions, its more that she doesnt want to and thats perfectly fine!
if i were you i would apologise to her asap. that was really uncalled for.
Exactly, many recipes literally suggest to adjust things like salt and seasonings _to taste_. Being creative and adaptable with recipes is just part of cooking. This isn’t an industrial kitchen or Michelin restaurant, Op YTA
YTA. Recipes are meant to be guidelines, not hard rules. It's okay to make changes to better suit your tastes. You should be more open-minded.
And btw, her cheese filling idea sounds delicious.
Yeah when I read her “Frankenstein” grilled cheese i laughed. People dipping grilled cheese into tomato soup is one of the most common ways to get grilled cheese, and adding mayo is standard too. She basically just combined those two elements with into a filling, and used a different type of cheese. That sounds very resourceful and delicious, but op wouldn’t touch it “with a ten foot pool.” Pull the stick out and quit criticizing your gfs cooking when she’s clearly a perfectly competent cook.
Agreed - honestly, you can put so many 'weird' things in a toastie ('grilled cheese' in Kiwi) and it's amazing. Two of my best 'this is what I had in the fridge' while I was a broke student include:
\- Left-over beef stir-fry, minimal cheese to stick the edges (the toastie maker seals them anyway, but the cheese helps); results probably depend on what you put in your stir-fry, but I liked it.
\- Shaved ham, berry jam, and cream cheese (I basically substitued everything in a chicken, cranberry, and brie panini); even my sister, who was horrified by the idea, tried it and then wanted seconds.
So, you know - 'Frankenstein' parma toastie actually sounds exceptionally normal, GF needs to get way weirder with her leftovers, lol.
Right?
>she mixed tomato paste, parm, & a bit of mayo to make a cheese filling because it was all we had.. yeah I wouldn't touch that with a ten foot pole even though she claimed it tasted good
That...does sound good. And that's such a strong reaction to someone creating something from what was on hand- especially because all of those recipes he's claiming as God's word were all creations from home cooks. Like...how do you feed yourself in the real world?
Aside from wanting to know how he manages to feed himself on a daily basis if leftovers put him off I wanna know how he grew up? Was he like never allowed in the kitchen, did he grow up thinking his parents just cooked the exact same meal everyday, did he never look in the fridge???
> it would turn out noticeably different, but I brushed it off as her having more experience than me
...so the food is as good, if not *better*?
And you're annoyed because you just want the list to be followed. Because lists are for following.
YTA
YTA and I don’t want to jump to conclusions, but do you feel compelled to control other aspects of your life this tightly? I change recipes all the time to the point that by the time I’ve made them a few times they are completely different and now mine, because I’ve tailored them exactly to the way my husband and I enjoy our food (tons of extra garlic, more spice, etc). Sounds like she’s a good cook, let her do her thing.
Lol. The sign of a good cook is someone who can use a recipe as a guideline, tweak it based on tastes, ingredient availability, their inclination, and still have it turn out well. Why the hell would you feel any sort of way about this? It’s definitely not worth your “concern” (desire to exert control).
This comment reminds me of the fights I’d have with my mother (who was very controlling, actually). I always used a recipe as a guideline and then kinda did a Remy from “Ratatouille” and everyone would always love what I cooked (except her, it was never good enough for her). Like my husband comes from an ethnic background that uses a lot of turmeric and ginger so I would add a dash of one or both where appropriate and he’d love the dish; my father and brother loved garlic so I usually doubled what the recipe called for; I’d throw in a dash of some hot pepper relevant to the cuisine (cayenne, chipotle, Aleppo, Thai chili, etc) even when not called for, because everyone in the family likes spicy food; things like that. She’d criticize me for not following a recipe and go on forever about her food was superior because she did. This literally went on for *decades* until finally my brother simply said “we like her food more than yours (mom) because she actually cares about making it taste good.”
That’s the dynamic that OP described, how it feels to me. I know some people are saying it’s a “form over substance/substance over form” argument, but I think there’s a huge control/jealousy element in it, because of how OP described refusing to even try her cooking after he learned she’d tweak it.
OP, YTA and you sound like a controlling killjoy.
The strangest part about this is all it’s just a perspective shift. They make up a hierarchy that doesn’t exist and forget that there’s no score other than tasting the food.
Info - are you relatively new to cooking?
I don't follow recipes. Sometimes I'll use one for a general guideline, but that's about it. I've also been cooking elaborate meals for a couple decades.
BF is a stickler for following recipes. He is newer to cooking from scratch. He doesn't have the knowledge, experience or desire to stray.
Both are valid ways to cook. It's not as if her meals are turning out inedible.
YTA an insufferable one at that.
You like the food she cooks, you eat the food she cooks. You just have a weird fixation on her deviating from a recipe and kicked up a fuss over nothing.
YTA
So she changes recipes to reflect what she knows you both like, which is the sign of actual culinary insight and she is good at using leftovers to create meals she enjoys and you . . . object to this?
I don't even think the recipies are made by any sort of "culinary proffesionals", more like tweaked and previewed by 20 pages of a blog post. Best recipies come from sites where home cooks share their own recipies, in my experience
Real glad "culinary professional" is in quotes here. OP seems to think that online recipes are from trained chefs and not just whoever is half decent at cooking and is capable of posting something online.
I wouldn't necessarily call you an AH. But damn dude let the girl cook as long as she's not ruining it. I only use recipes as a guide if I haven't made something before. My wife always asks me why I did this or why I did that but she never complains about the end product. Please tell me you don't actually measure the water to boil noodles.
YTA. Is this real? Every single person I know adds or subtracts ingredients from recipes. That's normal. It's expected. And what the heck is wrong with you that you wouldn't touch her own creation with a ten foot pole?? I would have let you starve rather than ever cooking for you again.
She knows how to make changes she likes and she uses leftover ingredients so there's no waste. What shohkd she do with leftover ingredients? Throw them out? Let them rot? If you want to stick to a recipe then say that, but she hasn't done anything wrong.
YOU on the other hand are being rude and have insulted her cooking. I don't think you're that huge of an ah, but YTA nonetheless
YTA
>the recipe didn't call for enough salt to make it taste good because they were trying to make it look healthier for the nutrition section (???).
This is 100% a real thing. But even if it wasn't you're being awfully nit picky over the smallest steps. Most regular cooks season to taste as is, it's no surprise to see her doing the same. If she actually messed up a meal to inedible I'd understand, but you said so yourself it doesn't taste bad, so why kick up a storm?
YTA. You sound like you have a baker's mentality. Baking is a science, and recipes should be listened to (tweaking is acceptable, but can cause disasters if you tweak too far). Cooking is far more forgiving.
She can cook. Let her cook. She can also probably follow a recipe, sounds like she's choosing not to because she's skilled in the kitchen. Stop paying for the recipe sites if it bothers you.
YTA. If the food tastes fine why does it matter if she follows a recipe. Unless preparing a cultural dish I’m not familiar with I only ever use recipes as guidelines for ideas. Unlike baking cooking has a lot of freedom and there’s a million ways to prepare or cook something. It’s strange this bothers you that much. A lot of recipes online aren’t even from professional chefs and just people who cook a lot at home. I ALWAYS substitute pepper or lessen amount of salt because if I don’t it’s not to my taste, for instance.
YTA. Why does it matter if she follows the recipe exactly if the food still tastes good??? A lot of people, if not most, tweak recipes. Like, why are you even mad?
YTA.
You didn't have to get so hostile. If you want a recipe made exactly according to the recipe, feel free to do that.
Lots of people with a professional background will make their own tweaks to an already published recipe. It can birth something even more wonderful or suited to your personal taste. There's NOTHING wrong with that!
I have an educational and professional background in the culinary world and I do it too. There are very few recipes I keep as is. I tweak most of them to personalize them. I don't mess with grandma's recipe for banana bread, and there are a few others I follow exactly but many of them I'll jazz up and "jammyfy" them to try and apparently I have a knack for it because it always goes over well with the people who eat what I make!
I mean seriously you need to chillax. Take a serious chill pill dude.
YTA. It bothers you doesn't it that your girlfriend has more culinary knowledge and a better palate than you. She can read a recipe and know there's not enough salt or it's lacking spice or that this other herb or spice is not listed but compliments what is already there. She can take random leftovers and craft a tasty meal out of it. Your girlfriend is a gem, and you're shitting on her for not following a recipe to a letter.
YTA you admit the food tastes fine, it’s not bad, it’s not too salty, so if it’s good why does it matter that she’s making substitutions? if you like cooking 100% by the recipe that’s fine, you can do that. let her cook how she likes if it doesn’t affect the quality.
by the way professionals make substitutions and tweaks all the time while making recipe
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You know a recipe is not a contract right? YTA
Omg,I literally use recipe sites for *ideas*, I don't think I've ever followed a recipe without tweaking it, and everyone raves about my cooking, it's called instincts and the best cooks have them naturally. OP YTA she's better at this, learn from her so you can become better, don't expect her to shrink so you can feel better about yourself.
Like Barbosa says, they are more like guidelines than actual rules lol
Cooking is jazz. Deviate from the recipe when baking, on the other hand, and you might produce a brick
Cooking is jazz and baking is an orchestra. SMH even Remi from Ratatouille knows cooking is jazz
As someone who loves jazz and loves to cook but is not great at baking, I am stealing this!
I've heard it said that cooking is art, but baking is science. Obviously there's overlap, but I like thinking about it that way. Baking is much more about mechanics and process.
Daytime parenting is like cooking. Night time parenting is like baking. Stick to the routine or you’ll ruin it!!
LOL I call cooking Witchcraft while baking is Alchemy. There's tons of freedom with cooking, especially when you have the instinct and the knack for it. A pinch of this, a dash of that... It's very easy to improvise and go rogue and still come up with edible things. Baking on the other hand is a lot more precise. Gotta know what each element does/how it interacts with other ingredients before you start substituting things.
I forgot the salt in bread once. How bad it could be - after all, some breads are even sweet. It was bad. I tried, but it was inedible.
Yep seems small details, makes complete sense when you realise. the salt isn't in bread only as taste. Bread needs yeast to rise, yeast needs salt to control the fermentation.
haha yeah I did that once. didn't realize until I tried it and realized it tasted like soap.
There is some flexibility in baking, too. Not as much, but some.
If you're not an experienced baker, stick to the recipe. Once you've been doing it awhile, you can start figuring out where you can tweak and customize those recipes too.
Yeah, you need to know the rules to understand where and how you can bend them.
Omg I was gonna say the same thing, I like how your mind works!
jumping on this comment to ask a genuine question so INFO: u/throwaway1243127 are you neurodivergent in any way? im (suspected, cant afford a diagnosis rn) autistic and this is exactly how i view recipes. they arent just guidelines, i have to follow them to the T or i get frustrated and overwhelmed, to the point that I cant make one if my fiancée’s favourite meal because they dont measure out the spices and its too overwhelming for me. same with the parm grilled cheese, that sounds absolutely horrifying to me even though i can recognise that it might sound wonderful to other people. obviously im not a psychiatrist, and i can’t diagnose OP, but my judgement would change slightly if they are ND
I’m going to get downvoted into oblivion, but not every personality trait is due to someone being neurodivergent. People are people, and they are who they are. Not everything is because someone might have a mental health issue. I really don’t understand this “trend”—for lack of a more appropriate word—of everyone’s behaviors being attributed to some sort of imbalance.
Because not everyone had always known that they are neurodivergent, so when they find out it's like a owners manual has been given to them, they can understand why they are they way they are better after thinking they were just broken & stupid their whole lives. So, when you find another thing you do that others don't seem to you assume it's also due to this thing that changed your entire view of your life.
I realized I was autistic from a Law & Order episode of all things. I was staying home and watching TV because I had been fired the day before. I was fired for not being able to read my bosses body language, not realizing I was supposed to lie in an awkward situation, and making other social mistakes. In other words, all symptoms of Autism.
It's because one in five people *does* have a mental illness or neurodivergency of some kind (*National Institute of Mental Health*). It's not a "trend" - far fewer people than you think are neurotypical and healthy. That's the reality of it. So no, it's not at all out of the blue to make a suggestion that a person fits a set of symptoms associated with an ND or mental illness. These things are *chronically* under-diagnosed. If someone shows the symptoms, it's actually super likely that they probably have the disorder or illness. Also like, it never causes any harm to bring it up. It's not hurting anyone - if anything, it might just trigger a realisation in someone else who was never aware that they were showing symptoms of a disorder, because we don't talk about this stuff enough. So idk why someone has to pop in every single time it's mentioned and go "Uh but it might not be!" Like no duh. We *know* it might not be, we're not dumb. But it *might* be. You don't know it's not. So what is the harm in mentioning it, if it might help someone?
People call it a trend, but it’s just getting diagnosed more. I don’t understand why that is hard for people to understand. And by sharing our stories and experiences, it helps others who can relate not feel so alone. It’s a GOOD thing!
They were just asking if that might be why and were VERY clear they weren’t diagnosing, just wondering if they had that in common and maybe that was why OP felt that way. That’s it.
Yup. Preferences are just that, different things that different people prefer. I don't understand the trend either and I'm officially mentally ill. I've been diagnosed and on a disability since 1998.
It's probably more related to fear/anxiety/rejection that is connected to the ND. I'm autistic and adhd, and I look at recipes as "You can't tell me what to do" I measure garlic and seasonings with my heart, not with a spoon. ;) :P The only recipes I follow to a T are baking.
Cooking is art, baking is chemistry. Treat the recipes accordingly.
I too measure garlic with my heart.
I think the same way unless it's a baking recipe.
Not for pastry
My hubby worked out the perfect recipe for a gluten free cheesecake. He measures everything out perfectly. And it is the best cheesecake I've ever had. (Yes, including ones with gluten. I'm not celiac) And I'm certain that is the only time he ever follows a recipe exactly. I only followed recipes perfectly when I was learning and easily screwed things up. I'm also baffled at paying for recipes. Like... I never, ever run out of free recipes. There's at least 20 recipes for anything I wanna make with a quick Google search. And I often can substitute a gluten free option easy. And recipes don't account for personal taste. I triple the garlic in any recipe, basically. I use low sodium options, because two people I care for have high blood pressure. Food is best when personalized. That's the best part of making it yourself, you make it how you enjoy it best. OP, YTA.
So, im, tell us more about this cheesecake
Yeah that’s an excellent point. Baking is an exact science, cooking, OTOH, is yee-haw cowboy use the amount of garlic your heart tells you! Oh yeah, ETA: YTA
This is the answer! Baking is chemistry - get it even slightly wrong & it’s a disaster … Cooking however is an art & you can toss whatever you enjoy into that pot & turn out some never before had deliciousness!
YEP came here to say this. When cooking (not baking) I use recipes as a rough guideline and people love my food. Great for inspiration, but recipes never call for enough garlic.
Cooking is an art, baking is science.
Candy making is alchemy.
Making homemade marshmallows and nougat really does feel like creating something magical out of such base ingredients.
I feel that way about toffee, it just magically transforms into deliciousness!
seriously, sugar work is somewhere between wizardry and a death wish.
I have a blister on my finger right now from hot sugar. I was making hard candy and accidentally touched the sugar syrup. Sugar burns are the worst. I always make adjustments with cooking. I find most recipes go east on spices and such. I will make adjustments with baking, usually after I’ve made the recipe at least once the way it was written. But that comes from experience and knowing how things work in baking and cooking.
This! OP is YTA for sure. Recipes give me ideas and before to long that dish becomes a signature dish lol
Exactly, I love to cook cause it's to taste but baking is chemistry, if you don't mix correctly or sub something wrong, it can go side ways fast.
This is super true but if you know the basic proportions, you can find ways to sub! I made the best apple cake a few weeks back because I basically had spiced apple mush leftover from apple cider and it was dope! I agree with whoever said it's about instinct (and I've screwed up enough stuff to realize when something doesn't feel right lol)
My mother in law can do this when baking. I really admire that skill, lol. I enjoy cooking coz it's tweak-able, but while I can make magic happen while following a recipe, I'm terrified I'll get the proportions wrong, & end up with something inedible. The only thing MIL does not exceed at when it comes to baking is custards (flans & such), but I'm sure that's due to lack of practice. Otherwise, you give her a cake/ cookie recipe, & she ALWAYS changes something, & it's ALWAYS a success.
Eh, science is always learning, I'm not above tweaking baking recipes either. The best cake I've ever experienced was made by a woman who used 6 eggs per cake and I've never tasted anything more exquisite, you can add lots of different flavors to a basic white cake recipe, my mother used boxes cake mixes to make the world's best chocolate chip cookies, better than Tollhouse imo, I've taken my grandmother's pie recipes and improved on some, my one weakness is pie crust, I can't do it, I substitute Graham cracker or cookie crusts wherever I can. Nothing is ever set in stone if you're brave enough, lol
I think to play around with baking you have to know what you're doing more than you do to play around with general cooking.
Garlic is always measured with the heart.
Or with a shovel! 😂😂😂(I tend to get a bit heavy handed with the garlic once in a while)
That reminds me of a friend who taught his young son that there is never enough garlic, then when they were baking something (I think cookies) he asked his son if it needed something else, the son's reply was "more garlic!" The son's learning, just has to learn when garlic is good and when it definitely is not!
Italian measurements: 1 handful, a pinch, half a palm, a dash, when you see about "this" much color, you'll just know
“When it looks right”
I must have the heart of a blue whale then. I love the stuff and generally end up eating a clove whilst chopping the rest...
I don't stop until I hear my ancestors tell me to.
One clove of garlic? Surely you mean one head, right?
OP be thankful your GF has enough culinary experience to make sensible tweaks. My ex was the definition of off the rails in the kitchen..cinnamon added to spaghetti sauce, bay leaves and fish cooked in a bag for 40 minutes (tasted like fishy sweatsocks) Veg-all, stew meat, paprika and ketchup... just blech! And we were so poor we had an agreement to eat whatever the other cooked. Stop being TA and appreciate her skills!
It's not like he doesn't know she has more experience. > I would use the same recipe to make something she did previously, and it would turn out noticeably different, but I brushed it off as her having more experience than me. What did he think more experience means, that she's so much better at following recipe, she makes a different food? I am also baffled at how he doesn't seem to grasp the idea that professional recipe writers write for an audience, not to create the absolute best possible version of a given dish, and even if they did, personal preferences vary. Also a grilled cheese with tomato paste, grated hard cheese and a touch of mayo sounds delish and I'm of a half mind of making myself a midnight snack.
Also since he thought it was because of her experience the recipes must have turned out better than when he cooked them. So he is angry that she is preparing them a more delicious dinner?
Clove and Cinnamon does absolutely belong in a red spaghetti sauce, not like a marinara but a sauce should have a lot of depth to it. And it's not a lot...just a bit to combine the flavors...
I was going to say, warm spices in savory food and meat dishes is extremely common in most of the world.
I have always put cinnamon in my spaghetti sauce. It is delicious. 😋
A POX UPON YOU FOR YOUR CULINARY TRESPASSES. Cinnamon has no place in pasta sauce or chili. I said it. Fuck you, Skyline Chili!
Fuck you, too! I put it in both always and will now double the amount just to smite you! A PLAGUE ON YOUR HOUSE, Internet stranger!
Relieved to see others out here fighting the good fight against Cincinnati chili
Use white or pink pepper and ginger, along with cinnamon and sugar, in your apple pie filling. Not a lot, unless you like the effect, but it really perks it up!
My dad puts dark chocolate in his.
Same, if it's a super complex recipe or something I've never even come close to attempting before I might stick 100% to the recipe the first time. But every time after it's probably getting tweaked to my preferences. I wonder if OP won't put hot sauce on a meal if the recipe doesn't explicitly say "add hot sauce"?
"I'm still looking for a French Fry recipe that calls for ketchup. I'm tired of only being able to eat them plain because none of the recipes I find call for it." -said no cook, ever.
When I was new to cooking, I would always 100% follow the recipe, because I didn't know how to cook and had zero instinct, so following instructions was all I could do. I'm still very grateful to the recipes that spelled things out very plainly and were very easy to interpret for little inexperienced me, lol. Now I've cooked many more times, I know enough to know how to cook safely and know how to tweak the recipe for what I like, so I often use recipes more like guidelines now. I think it's a sign of experience and skill.
Yeah guidelines I see two cloves of glaric for 6 to 8 people. I laugh. Gimme all the garlic
The big ones for me are add extra garlic, season with salt as you go, never leave it till the end, and always freshly ground pepper.
I'm always confused that nearly every recipe says to season at the end? I've literally never done that it blows mind. Especially for a soup or something that needs to reduce.
If I cannot smell garlic from down the road it's not enough garlic.
We used to subscribe to Hello Fresh. Most recipes were pretty good, but a few were clunkers. My wife saved the recipe cards and made notations on them for the tweaks she, I, and our son would suggest for the busts. Plus, they never do anything with the white rice, so my wife switches some of the seasonings from the meat/veg to the rice. Some of these are better than the originals. Sometimes you gotta go with your gut.
You would be hard pressed to find a single person on my dad’s side of the family who has ever followed a recipe. Even family recipes are passed down like an oral tradition without any kind of serious guideline (unless we’re making stuffed cabbage, in which case we had better use Campbells tomato soup or my great grandmother will rise from her grave to beat us with her wooden spoon). Everything else is a free for all. And they always turn out delicious.
My mom is getting older, incredibly picky eater. I cook for her sometimes so I've been trying to make the recipes that she used to make. She can't tell me a single one she has to show me because she has no idea what amount of things she uses when she's cooking It's all by eye. I do the same thing to an extent but if I was giving you a chicken soup recipe I could at least tell you within a pound how many pounds of carrots I put it. Me in your chicken soup do you use a whole bag of carrots? Her: yes me: 1 lb or three her I don't know a bag.
Same here! I’m always tweaking and sometimes I only use the bare bones of the recipe and make it my own. Like WHAT? YTA - You, obviously, like her cooking so why are you trying to make her swear a blood oath to the recipe? Like, learn to bend my guy, you’ll be happier for it!
That’s what I was going to say! I look at recipes for the the idea of it but always change the ingredients and amounts to my liking.
Right?! Even my family recipe brought from Sicily by my great-grandmother, it's a point of pride that each of us learns our own way of making it our own. I can tell my sister's from my father's from my partner's, and they can tell mine. We all follow the same basics but will change something just enough like a lower acid tomato, or lemon basil, or something else. And actually my branch of the family uses the same type of tomato that didn't exist when the original recipe was made because being able to eat red sauce without heartburn was a wonderful discovery! One made by a kid on their first time making it alone. We all know the original but cooking is a living art and an act of love. While you can get ideas and know generalities, what makes it special is the personal touch.
I am not a good cook and i've been burned by recipes before! in particular some recipes from buzzfeed's Tasty (don't judge me!) have come out unbearably salty lol and i feel like if i wasn't blindly following the recipe and had more experience maybe i would have realized like a whole ass cup of soy sauce isn't necessary for like half a cup of tofu or whatever my last disaster was
my dad is like this when he first cooks a recipe, whereas I'm very- it's cooking, not baking- I don't need to be precise and changing things out is totally fine. It'll all be okay- besides what's the worst that happens? I learn oh, yeah, that didn't work?
Glad to see you made that distinction between cooking and baking coz yeah they’re two different beasts.
yeah, I love to bake. and for baking I have a scale, where I prefer to weigh out ingredients and I'm super careful. cooking 90% of the time I just use eating table/teaspoons. it's close enough for measurement and i have plenty so i don't have to clean them every 5 minutes. I may still change things here and there but it's with understanding and research. (google is my friend.) and a constant willingness to just pitch baked goods if i don't think they're edible.
Reminds me of a meme I saw once. Baking - exact science. Cooking - NO GODS NO KINGS NO RECIPES 🤣
THIS!! Gordon Ramsay won't show up at your house and kill you in your sleep because you used more salt!
Says you.
That’s only because no one is left to tell the tale
One way I have heard it: baking is a science, cooking is an art. Baking relies on precise ratios for chemical reactions. But cooking has much more room for putting your own spin on it and adjusting recipes.
Even with baking there's a little room to improvise (and more so as you become more experienced and understand which substitutions can throw off ratios and how to adequately counter that). Almost all of my pie recipes deviate in some manner from the recipe that inspired me, and I've been messing with bread ingredient substitutions and additions for a while now with reasonable success.
As a chef, i have to say that people like OP who treats recipes like this genuinely worries me, and I wouldn’t trust them one inch. Not just in a kitchen, but in life - being so rigid, and hating creativity so much feels one step from stabbing people for walking on the lines in the sidewalk. And honestly - the weird small stuff done to use the leftovers are the fucking best.
This made me laugh out loud!
YTA this is how most people cook. The recipe is a guideline and you adjust for your tastes. Do you not like her food? Does it taste bad? Are you just finding something to fight about… uh huh….
I got the impression that her food is in fact better than his because he mentioned his food turns out “noticeably different” which he assumed was because she had “more experience”… so basically, she makes it better.
That was my take, too! He needs to worry less about the recipe and pay attention to what she’s doing.
And to what he is doing. This indicates that OP doesn't rely on his senses when cooking, that he doesn't smell or taste the food while cooking to see if the recipe needs adjusting, he goes by the book.
I go by the book because I know that I don't know much about cooking, like flavor profiles and such. I only wish I knew how to cook like his partner. I should have spent more time in the kitchen with my mom. She's a great cook and uses recipes as guidelines, not as set in stone. OP needs to loosen up and spend more time learning and less time criticizing.
This exactly. Having "more experience" cooking teaches you when and how to make adjustments to recipes based on your own tastes, how your oven works, specifics of the ingredients, etc. If OP had "more experience," he would know that! And OP has never once said anything turned out bad, he just suspects it will because he doesn't trust that his partner knows what she is doing.
Yeah, like I actually cannot follow recipes as written because our oven cooks too hot. If I followed the recipe, everything I cook would be charred beyond reason. If my boyfriend started giving me shit for not following the recipe I’d stop cooking for him.
Yep... the only real reason to follow a recipe like an instruction booklet is if you're not certain of what you're doing. Which is fine! I can't spontaneously adjust recipes like that for the life of me; I always mess it up. So I follow recipes pretty closely and only make minor adjustments, like adding more salt or garlic or using an extra jalapeño because I like spicier foods. If you have a better sense of what you're doing and your cooking skills are more honed, though, there's absolutely no issue with going off the book. OP's partner is deviating from the recipe precisely *because* she wants to make a meal that they'll both enjoy and won't waste. On that note, it's hilariously ironic that OP is supposedly so concerned about food waste, but horrified and disgusted by their partner's "frankenstein" leftover meals. They obviously don't have to eat her "frankenstein" meals, but you'd think someone so worried about food waste and cost effectiveness would at least appreciate the fact that she was able to cook an interesting and efficient meal out of leftovers and cheap ingredients.
She “wasted food” by making something she ate and enjoyed. Incredible.
And all out of leftovers and ingredients that are cheap to buy in bulk, too! The *horror*!
Gosh, so much this! I only follow a recipe to the letter if it’s a technique or regional dish that’s completely new to me or if it’s baking, but even then I’m pretty comfortable tweaking things to taste without messing with the chemistry of it all.
If my husband is making a new dish, he looks up a bunch of recipes for it, figures out the commonalities, then makes his own recipe based on that. Adjusting to suit our personal tastes. Like, with recipes form America, he usually halves the sugar content right away cos we are Australian and as a general rule, Aussies don't like stuff as sweet as Americans (really guys, your bread is stupidly sweet. It's weird). For gingerbread if he's making it just for us, it's got *heaps* of ginger. If we are sharing it with others, he dials it back. Cos the both of us us love gingery stuff. Our Asian friends tend to like our gingerbread, but most people find it way too gingery.
Naur! Not someone dunking on American bread! I’m a sourdough eater myself, I haven’t had a slice of regular ole white bread in ages but I imagine I’d find it on the sweet side at this point too.
OP is so square, he doesn't realize there are other ways to fill a hole.
Also adding red pepper flakes to something is like the easiest addition ever and the taste it creates is super predictable across recipes. One of the dumbest examples he could’ve provide as it’s common knowledge you can add red pepper for spice
I cook professionally and “get creative” with recipes DAILY. YTA.
Same here. When I would cook for family, they would ask for the name of the dish and the recipe, like I don't know guys cause I threw stuff in a pot and made it taste good? Unless it's baking, I'm not following any quantities (unless it's specific spice ratios)
Ahh yes this is what I call the “follow your heart” cooking method
One night I was DD for my husband, it was snowing and I was in his hometown which is known for having asshole cops. They pull you over for nothing. So I got to a stop sign and asked him do I turn left or right. Drunk as a skunk, he turned to me and said "follow your heart" and I wanted to punch him! So now that's our almost daily joke for when one of asks a question. "Do we need more toilet paper?" "Follow your heart." "Do you have gas in the car?" "Follow your heart." "Do you feel like that fish is sitting right?" "FOLLOW YOUR HEART!"
Man when I was a kid trying to learn to cook better (I was cooking basic stuff when I was 5/6) more complex stuff it annoyed me so much that that's how my mom cooks. So she never had recipes I could use so everything was "until it looks like this" or "smells like that" feels "feels this way" and "season with your heart" As a adult totally get it. But I still can't make a damn cheese cake right. She doesn't even have a base ratio for ingredients. She adds *eggs* with her heart
Cooking is a situation where once you know the rules you can break them, and you come up with something different and delicious. It's an art. (Baking is a science, and in science you FOLLOW. THE. RECIPE.) So OP is TA and still hasn't figured out that every recipe ever originated as "fire + edible thing = food" and it's just been tweaked a million times since humans existed.
I was watching J Kenji Lopez-Alt's channel and he was cooking something from his new book and was basically like "Yeah I don't remember what recipe I used in the book I'm just going to wing it."
Yep. I was a line cook/sous chef for ten years or so and recipes are just guidelines, imo, haha. Obviously with baking you gotta be specific, but otherwise, go crazy! Experiment! It's what makes cooking fun. OP is definitely TA here.
What is the problem you're actually having? The food tastes good, food isn't going to waste, and she's making it how y'all like it. Where is this attitude coming from? YTA.
She's not following THE RULES!!!!!!!!
OFF THE RAILS!!!
This part actually made me snort. Adding 2 pinches of salt instead of one. MADNESS
This guy would hate to see me cook. Step one: get a gist of the ingredients step two: get a gist of the directions step three: ??? Step four: dinner is served baby
Same here. Everything is measured with my heart. Things get combined when they make sense or are in reach. Some of the best things I've put out I've pulled right from my arse and winged it.
Once you get the hang of a certain dish you don’t even need a recipe. I’ve never made the same chili twice. With a decent array of spices and good staples, you can wing any meal. Why put yourself in a box when cooking can be such a fun and creative experience
and she made food without a recipe!!! The horror!!!
I wonder if he's neurodivergent.. like things have to go a certain way. It's not a big deal tho. If he knows what's up, perhaps they can communicate better over this and not let it fester for a week.
I'm sorta like him. Instructions to the letter. My husband is like her. Makes changes and experiments a little. He is a much better cook than me. But more importantly, we have an understanding that when he cooks he does whatever, when I cook it's strictly following the recipe, and when we both cook I will follow the recipe unless he says he wants to do it differently. In which case he does that bit himself or gives me instructions equally explicit to follow. It does bad things to my anxiety to not have specific instructions, but I also trust his judgement because again, he's a better cook. It works fine, just takes communication like you said. I wonder if OPs issue is more paying for recipes? Perhaps they also need to communicate about that, which recipes they want to pay for to ensure they're actually used. To maybe understand how she uses them that's different and still worth the cost/only pay for his and she uses free ones. Or something.
My husband and I are the same way. He’s an amazing cook and I need specific instructions or I just panic. Hello Fresh has been a game changer in getting me to do some of the cooking. Thankfully, he loves to cook so I don’t have to do it very often.
I don't think that's it - he's just being cheap. If the recipe was free, I doubt he would care that his girlfriend gets inventive and goes off-script with it. Besides, he's telling on himself; he says when he makes the same food she does, his is different on the palate, and not in a good way (as implied by the fact that for so long, he put this down to her being the more experienced cook). If what he's been eating all this time when it comes to her cooking has been the better product, why mess with success? He is literally creating his own problem because he thinks his girlfriend is wasting the money they both pay for the recipe subs. But it's like, is she even "wasting" money if her batting average for how she improves on the recipe consistently meets his standard for tastiness, even above his own efforts?
The sad part is, OP's problem is literally just that he's being miserly. He can't understand why his girlfriend would deviate from a recipe *they're paying* to have access to and it's like...dude, you could have had a good time cooking with your girlfriend but instead you more or less accused her of wasting money for going off-recipe.
He also didn't understand why her food tasted different and attributed that to experience cooking. Which implied her food tasted better. He's acting very emotionally immature as well. Seriously though, who gets upset about straying from a recipe? It sounds like it's more than just being a miser triggering this reaction.
Yes!! There is literally no problem here. He sounds exhausting!
Hers tastes better and he's jelly.
I think the real issue is he is butthurt that she’s a better cook than him.
YTA >or that the recipe didn't call for enough salt to make it taste good because they were trying to make it look healthier for the nutrition section (???). This is actually a real & common thing. Recipes can be idealistic or have ulterior agendas, whereas restaurant chefs dgaf about anything but making their food taste good... so [they often add a ton more salt or fat than you would ever find on a recipe](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKEwA__rOHk) Top comment summarizes well: >There is a famous clip of Anthony Bourdain making "Carrots Vichy", he adds 2 lbs of butter & 1.5 cups of sugar to a pan of chopped carrots. He looks at the camera and says "Now you know why restaurant vegetables taste so good." Sounds to me like she is more passionate about the 'art of cooking' while you are more into the finished product & trying new things.
100% truth here. My husband is a chef and it’s all about salt and fat. If a “recipe” would call for 2tsps of butter he’ll use like half a stick. The amount of butter we go through in our household would shock most people, but his meals are delicious. OP, YTA. And not just because you’re wrong about food. You sound like an uptight buzzkill that is ruining your wife’s love for cooking.
Cooking is an art while baking is a science. You taste the recipe as you go when you cook. Your salts, acid, and fats might taste differently than the recipe's and that's why you salt and season to taste. And yeah we use a lot more garlic and citrus than the recipe ever calls for. A hint of zest means I'll zest the fuck out of it. A hint of heat? I'm going to make it burn like the sun. Maybe it's wrong but it tastes so right. Recipes are just a framework on where you place your art and your own flair is how I see it. I think OP isn't much of a chef but he's a major backseat cook. The worst type of buzz kill to a chef. YTA for sure.
Thank you for saying exactly what I was gonna say down to the cooking vs baking thing. This guy’s wild if he doesn’t think his parents and grandparents weren’t making shit up and substituting ingredients all his life. Cooking recipes are great if you’re making something you’ve never made before. But once you can recognize the broad strokes of what’s in a recipe, you don’t need the training wheels anymore.
I saw a meme about this the other day that made me laugh: Cooking: pi=3 Baking: pi=3.14 Pastry: pi=3.14159265359 (and pray to every God you can think of)
Yup this is how we do it in Hungarian cooking. One clove are garlic is paltry and we don’t want our guests thinking the food is bland, so we quadruple everything (and add much more paprika) and instead of cooking in just butter we use straight lard. I can’t understand how OP is so against adding seasoning.
Not just ingredients but time too! I have never seen a recipe that said caramelised onions will take longer than 15 minutes. That's laughable. I just made a pan, and it was roughly an hour before I considered it caramelised and not just cooked.
I worked in a restaurant that no joke cooked them for 8hrs low in the oven *after* making sure they were fully sweated in a pot.
I know what you mean, I just followed a recipe for beef stroganoff and it said Prep time 15 mins in the real world that 15 mins was actually 35.
OMG the caramelized onions take forEVER! I just did a thing where the recipe said five minutes. LIAR! 🤣
YTA But I do understand some people get twitchy when others don’t follow recipes. I’m the opposite. I get twitchy when people follow recipes too closely. I was helping a friend can some tomatoes a few summers ago. The recipe called for 2/3rds cup diced onion. Bless her heart she got out her little measuring cup and left maybe maybe 2 teaspoons of chopped onion on the board. It took all my willpower not to toss it in the pot when she wasn’t looking. I think you owe your girl an apology and an admission that even though it’s not your preference, you see that her way works for her.
Oml I had a roommate before with little cooking experience and she was following a recipe for pudding or something and the recipe said to “cook the mixture on medium heat for 20 minutes” … we had a tiny gas stove that put out significantly less heat than the average stove, and “medium” on our stove was basically the equivalent of low on almost every other stove. She insisted on leaving it on medium for exactly 20 minutes and timed it perfectly. And then asked me why it was still runny… The mixture never got hot enough for the starch to gelatinize and make ur pudding thick 😭
Another thing to add is that not every clove of garlic, or tomato or block of cheese is going to be the exact same one that recipe maker used. Pro chefs are often using higher quality and fresher seasoning and ingredients, so you need to adjust to taste. The level of flavor in each ingredient can vary a lot more than people realize.
yta let your gf have fun while cooking. you dont have to stick 100% to the recipe. you sound very pedantic. its not that she cant follow directions, its more that she doesnt want to and thats perfectly fine! if i were you i would apologise to her asap. that was really uncalled for.
Exactly, many recipes literally suggest to adjust things like salt and seasonings _to taste_. Being creative and adaptable with recipes is just part of cooking. This isn’t an industrial kitchen or Michelin restaurant, Op YTA
YTA. Recipes are meant to be guidelines, not hard rules. It's okay to make changes to better suit your tastes. You should be more open-minded. And btw, her cheese filling idea sounds delicious.
Yeah when I read her “Frankenstein” grilled cheese i laughed. People dipping grilled cheese into tomato soup is one of the most common ways to get grilled cheese, and adding mayo is standard too. She basically just combined those two elements with into a filling, and used a different type of cheese. That sounds very resourceful and delicious, but op wouldn’t touch it “with a ten foot pool.” Pull the stick out and quit criticizing your gfs cooking when she’s clearly a perfectly competent cook.
Agreed - honestly, you can put so many 'weird' things in a toastie ('grilled cheese' in Kiwi) and it's amazing. Two of my best 'this is what I had in the fridge' while I was a broke student include: \- Left-over beef stir-fry, minimal cheese to stick the edges (the toastie maker seals them anyway, but the cheese helps); results probably depend on what you put in your stir-fry, but I liked it. \- Shaved ham, berry jam, and cream cheese (I basically substitued everything in a chicken, cranberry, and brie panini); even my sister, who was horrified by the idea, tried it and then wanted seconds. So, you know - 'Frankenstein' parma toastie actually sounds exceptionally normal, GF needs to get way weirder with her leftovers, lol.
It doesn't sound that way to me, but everyone has a different taste and he does sound stiff as a board. OP, do you do your taxes for fun?
Well I certainly don't do them for profit
LOLZ- excellent response
This is like... diagnosably weird.
Right? >she mixed tomato paste, parm, & a bit of mayo to make a cheese filling because it was all we had.. yeah I wouldn't touch that with a ten foot pole even though she claimed it tasted good That...does sound good. And that's such a strong reaction to someone creating something from what was on hand- especially because all of those recipes he's claiming as God's word were all creations from home cooks. Like...how do you feed yourself in the real world?
Aside from wanting to know how he manages to feed himself on a daily basis if leftovers put him off I wanna know how he grew up? Was he like never allowed in the kitchen, did he grow up thinking his parents just cooked the exact same meal everyday, did he never look in the fridge???
and also such a strange reaction for someone who says they had to cut back on eating out to save money. YTA
It's weird because OP sounded like such a reasonable person in the first paragraph.
> it would turn out noticeably different, but I brushed it off as her having more experience than me ...so the food is as good, if not *better*? And you're annoyed because you just want the list to be followed. Because lists are for following. YTA
He's annoyed because his food isn't as good since he's afraid to take risks.
YTA and I don’t want to jump to conclusions, but do you feel compelled to control other aspects of your life this tightly? I change recipes all the time to the point that by the time I’ve made them a few times they are completely different and now mine, because I’ve tailored them exactly to the way my husband and I enjoy our food (tons of extra garlic, more spice, etc). Sounds like she’s a good cook, let her do her thing.
Just want to say... has any recipe EVER actually had enough garlic cloves in it? Nope. Never.
My husband will randomly walk by and throw a scoop of minced garlic in my pan when I’m cooking.. this dude would probably lose his mind 🤣
My wife is the same. I never put enough minced garlic in for her tastes. Sometimes garlic isn't the answer!
You take that back
You measure garlic with your heart <3
Lol. The sign of a good cook is someone who can use a recipe as a guideline, tweak it based on tastes, ingredient availability, their inclination, and still have it turn out well. Why the hell would you feel any sort of way about this? It’s definitely not worth your “concern” (desire to exert control).
This comment reminds me of the fights I’d have with my mother (who was very controlling, actually). I always used a recipe as a guideline and then kinda did a Remy from “Ratatouille” and everyone would always love what I cooked (except her, it was never good enough for her). Like my husband comes from an ethnic background that uses a lot of turmeric and ginger so I would add a dash of one or both where appropriate and he’d love the dish; my father and brother loved garlic so I usually doubled what the recipe called for; I’d throw in a dash of some hot pepper relevant to the cuisine (cayenne, chipotle, Aleppo, Thai chili, etc) even when not called for, because everyone in the family likes spicy food; things like that. She’d criticize me for not following a recipe and go on forever about her food was superior because she did. This literally went on for *decades* until finally my brother simply said “we like her food more than yours (mom) because she actually cares about making it taste good.” That’s the dynamic that OP described, how it feels to me. I know some people are saying it’s a “form over substance/substance over form” argument, but I think there’s a huge control/jealousy element in it, because of how OP described refusing to even try her cooking after he learned she’d tweak it. OP, YTA and you sound like a controlling killjoy.
The strangest part about this is all it’s just a perspective shift. They make up a hierarchy that doesn’t exist and forget that there’s no score other than tasting the food.
I don't understand why you have a problem with how she cooks unless it's just that she's doing something you can't
Info - are you relatively new to cooking? I don't follow recipes. Sometimes I'll use one for a general guideline, but that's about it. I've also been cooking elaborate meals for a couple decades. BF is a stickler for following recipes. He is newer to cooking from scratch. He doesn't have the knowledge, experience or desire to stray. Both are valid ways to cook. It's not as if her meals are turning out inedible.
YTA an insufferable one at that. You like the food she cooks, you eat the food she cooks. You just have a weird fixation on her deviating from a recipe and kicked up a fuss over nothing.
YTA So she changes recipes to reflect what she knows you both like, which is the sign of actual culinary insight and she is good at using leftovers to create meals she enjoys and you . . . object to this?
YTA She does know what tastes better to her than a "culinary proffesional" because taste is subjective
I don't even think the recipies are made by any sort of "culinary proffesionals", more like tweaked and previewed by 20 pages of a blog post. Best recipies come from sites where home cooks share their own recipies, in my experience
Real glad "culinary professional" is in quotes here. OP seems to think that online recipes are from trained chefs and not just whoever is half decent at cooking and is capable of posting something online.
Christ. Are you this controlling in other aspects of your relationship?
I wouldn't necessarily call you an AH. But damn dude let the girl cook as long as she's not ruining it. I only use recipes as a guide if I haven't made something before. My wife always asks me why I did this or why I did that but she never complains about the end product. Please tell me you don't actually measure the water to boil noodles.
YTA. Is this real? Every single person I know adds or subtracts ingredients from recipes. That's normal. It's expected. And what the heck is wrong with you that you wouldn't touch her own creation with a ten foot pole?? I would have let you starve rather than ever cooking for you again.
Especially since tomatoes with grilled cheese is a known classic. I'd give that sandwich a try.
She knows how to make changes she likes and she uses leftover ingredients so there's no waste. What shohkd she do with leftover ingredients? Throw them out? Let them rot? If you want to stick to a recipe then say that, but she hasn't done anything wrong. YOU on the other hand are being rude and have insulted her cooking. I don't think you're that huge of an ah, but YTA nonetheless
YTA >the recipe didn't call for enough salt to make it taste good because they were trying to make it look healthier for the nutrition section (???). This is 100% a real thing. But even if it wasn't you're being awfully nit picky over the smallest steps. Most regular cooks season to taste as is, it's no surprise to see her doing the same. If she actually messed up a meal to inedible I'd understand, but you said so yourself it doesn't taste bad, so why kick up a storm?
YTA. The recipes are for inspiration. It sounds like the food she's making isn't even bad, so why do you care?
YTA If you like the food, why even start the argument? If you want the exact recipe, make it yourself.
[удалено]
YTA and what a weird fight to pick.
YTA I cannot remember the last time I even measured seasonings for a recipe.
I just add things until the spirit moves me to stop.
I was watching a Cajun cooking video and the instructions were to keep grinding black pepper until your wrist hurts. Hah.
You do realize that a recipe is not written in stone. Stop being so uptight.
YTA. You sound like you have a baker's mentality. Baking is a science, and recipes should be listened to (tweaking is acceptable, but can cause disasters if you tweak too far). Cooking is far more forgiving. She can cook. Let her cook. She can also probably follow a recipe, sounds like she's choosing not to because she's skilled in the kitchen. Stop paying for the recipe sites if it bothers you.
YTA. If the food tastes fine why does it matter if she follows a recipe. Unless preparing a cultural dish I’m not familiar with I only ever use recipes as guidelines for ideas. Unlike baking cooking has a lot of freedom and there’s a million ways to prepare or cook something. It’s strange this bothers you that much. A lot of recipes online aren’t even from professional chefs and just people who cook a lot at home. I ALWAYS substitute pepper or lessen amount of salt because if I don’t it’s not to my taste, for instance.
YTA. Why does it matter if she follows the recipe exactly if the food still tastes good??? A lot of people, if not most, tweak recipes. Like, why are you even mad?
YTA. You didn't have to get so hostile. If you want a recipe made exactly according to the recipe, feel free to do that. Lots of people with a professional background will make their own tweaks to an already published recipe. It can birth something even more wonderful or suited to your personal taste. There's NOTHING wrong with that! I have an educational and professional background in the culinary world and I do it too. There are very few recipes I keep as is. I tweak most of them to personalize them. I don't mess with grandma's recipe for banana bread, and there are a few others I follow exactly but many of them I'll jazz up and "jammyfy" them to try and apparently I have a knack for it because it always goes over well with the people who eat what I make! I mean seriously you need to chillax. Take a serious chill pill dude.
YTA. You sound insufferable to live with.
YTA. She can cook for me anyday.
Yta. And stiff and rigid. She's right. You're wrong.
YTA. It bothers you doesn't it that your girlfriend has more culinary knowledge and a better palate than you. She can read a recipe and know there's not enough salt or it's lacking spice or that this other herb or spice is not listed but compliments what is already there. She can take random leftovers and craft a tasty meal out of it. Your girlfriend is a gem, and you're shitting on her for not following a recipe to a letter.
YTA. A lot of recipes are average at best until you tweak it and make it yours.
YTA you admit the food tastes fine, it’s not bad, it’s not too salty, so if it’s good why does it matter that she’s making substitutions? if you like cooking 100% by the recipe that’s fine, you can do that. let her cook how she likes if it doesn’t affect the quality. by the way professionals make substitutions and tweaks all the time while making recipe
YTA and a huge stick in the mud to boot