Do you stick to recipes?

Like most of us I'm sure, I love reading new recipes.  When I have something to use up, or want to make something for a particular meal or occasion, or make a cake, say, I sometimes have a quick flick through my cook books or, more often than not, google for a recipe.  Having found one (or several, usually), I almost never follow the recipe exactly, instead using it as an idea and changing it around to suit what I have in, or just because I think another ingredient would work well - or even taste better!

I am an adventurous cook and love experimenting with ingredients.  Sometimes something might not work as well as I thought it might, but it's always edible (well, nearly always) and my husband is a willing tester and will eat whatever I give him.  I don't always work to a recipe, quite often I just wing it, an idea will come to me (usually in the middle of the night!) and I build on it with whatever else I've got in.  I do think this comes with experience, when we're young and just starting cooking, I guess we do tend to stick to a recipe.  When we get older, more experienced and our confidence grows, we realise that we don't have to stick slavishly to recipes, however.

I belong to a Mediterranean diet (way of eating) group on FB, I joined it to get new ideas for meals.  Well, some of the questions asked on there, and some of the responses, make me either laugh out loud or shake my head in despair.  There's no doubt that some people on there are just too fanatical for their own good - as an example, someone recently posted a photo of a meal they'd made that included some bacon lardons, whereupon they were told by somebody in no uncertain terms that bacon 'is not allowed on the Med diet'.  Really?!  And someone else yesterday said they were making a meal containing beans and realised at the last minute that they didn't have the type of beans stated in the recipe they were following, and so asked on the group page if another type of bean they had would be ok to use?  Again, really?!  It's like they were asking for permission!  Just use your initiative and use what you have, for goodness sake.  And as for the bacon 'not being allowed' - I didn't realise the Med diet was governed by 'Rules' with a capital 'R'.  Ok, so red meat and especially processed meats are not encouraged, but it's hardly going to kill you if you eat them in moderation, is it?

Since when did cooking and eating food become so regimented and regulated and fraught with anxiety and the danger of being told off for not following a regime slavishly?  We don't have the Food Police standing over us in our kitchens with an electric cattle prod, ready to zap us if we don't follow the rules.

Food is one of the great pleasures in life, it's interesting and exciting coming up with ideas and preparing meals, I firmly believe we should have fun in the kitchen!  If people want to follow recipes - fine, somebody else has done the hard work in coming up with the idea and testing it out, so you more or less know it will work out ok.  But going off piste and running with an idea is fine too, if it works out (and it probably will) then you have a nice new meal to add to your repertoire.  If it's not what you expected, well then you know you can either stick to the recipe or change it up for something else next time.

Gemma's Person, your husband's comment did make me laugh!  I don't consider I cook fancy meals at all - I do like colourful meals with a lot of taste and variety.  I don't use fancy ingredients (generally too expensive!) and my presentation sometimes leaves a lot to be desired.  But thank him for me anyway, I'm glad he was impressed!