Are you good at creating things from scratch?

I am always in the kitchen making something or another up. I have always done that though and made my family suffer through the trials of some of those dishes while I was growing up.. my hubby usually refuses to even try something if he doesn't recognize it..picky eater..lol I found that by experimenting a bit I can create several different dishes by just adding or subtracting a few ingredients. It is fun most times. I can't get my husband in the kitchen to make more then a bologna sandwich for himself anymore.

Yes it often happens that I decide to go shopping because I'm a bit low on some basic things but then someone comes or the phone goes (or I get glued on here) and it gets tolunchtime and I can't go until the afternoon. This happened last week. I had two eggs, some long tomatoes and some left over cheese. So I beat the eggs and added some salt and basil and put them in a non-stick pan. Then stirred them until just before they were cooked and then I added the tomatoes and the cheese diced up and stirred it all up until the cheese melted and the eggs were done. 'Twas yummy!

I can throw together things from scratch fairly well. Pasta meals are about the easiest. Or, I make what I call kitchen sink soup in my crockpot (one of those "everything but the kitchen sink" recipes). One thing I learned from my grandmother was how to make a good basic cream sauce... just a nice thick white sauce (butter, flour, milk and a little salt and pepper) but you can easily turn it into a curry sauce if you have curry powder on hand, for example. I learned that a great way to stretch anything (especially a small quantity of meat when you have to feed several) is to "cream" it. If you happen to like Chicken a la King, this is the thought process behind these throw-together meals. Anything creamed like this is served over toast (or when there is more money for groceries, those little patty shells are nice to fill... but, truly, I find the kids do better with just toast). My grandmother would make creamed chicken or turkey, tuna, salmon, crab or shrimp (most any fish or seafood from a can is good - no expense of anything fresh for this - and you can also mix a couple of kinds together). She always threw in frozen peas, corn or mixed vegetables or quickly stirred in leftover cooked veggies from a previous meal. When she was really short on cash, she made curried eggs. This was simply hard boiled eggs, sliced, and stirred into the curry sauce, again served on toast. Not fancy food... far from it... but when you consider the cost (especially when using cheap cans of tuna or something), you can get a nice big saucepan full and being thick and creamy makes it very satisfying, much like having stew.

Yeah I'm a really good at the baking and cooking from scratch. Both my parents are really good cooks and I think I must have gotten it from them.

I regularly delve into the cupboards and fridge, picking out things which I can concoct something with, and I do mean concoct. Sometimes they work out really tasty, other times, well lets just say what ever it was was eatable..... just. My trouble is that if I do make something really nice I never remember what I did exactly for the next time.

LOL... this is a favorite hobby of mine. As a kid my mother worked and dinner was left to me. We didn't always have a lot of money for food so I had to become creative in the kitchen. By the time I was in high school my mother had begun to collect my "recipes". It became such a part of me that now whether I need to or not I still make it up as I go. Helpful since many a week my cupboards are near to bare. Potatoes and rice are my basic starches as well as barley. I try to use meat as the side dish since that is usually the most expensive. Beans can go a long way as well and good old fashioned ones are a meal of their own!

I very rarely use recipes when I cook. I tend to usually just throw stuff together. I've been cooking since I was 10 and tend to be set in my ways. My kids have each gone through picky eater stages and I've learned how to work around them and still get nutrion into them. We very often have some sort of homemade soup and I'd never be able to write a recipe for it because it changes everytime. All depending on what I have in my cupboards.

I can "invent" new dishes out of the leftovers and I could say that I am pretty good at it. I can give new taste to leftover foods without looking at the recipe book. I make my own recipe according to my own taste and according to whatever ingredient is left in the kitchen or refrigerator.

Not me, no. That honor would go to my hubby. I am a good cook, but the totally from scratch thin only goes for recipes I have done over and over for ages.

Like a few others have said it depends on what one has to work with. I used to make a spicy cucumber soup, guess what I had cucumbers & ramen noodle and that's what I came up with & it tasted pretty darn good. I make chicken noodle soup and other things w/o a recipie. It's not too hard when it's a matter of necessity to come up with something from what others would consider nothing on it's own. The only things I can't make w/o a recipie is baking items. I can substitute things / flavors but any other variance will guarantee the item will be a flop.

Yes, I do have a few frugal recipes that i use when the going gets tough. I was broke this week but DIL insisted on buying all of the groceries etc so that was a blessing. I cn do it and have used the suggestions that people have given me re scrambled eggs many times. It is now a family favourite and I also added cooked potatoes to mine and it really stretched the dinner as he twins do not eat much.

I'm sure food like that taste very very very nice! I remember that I mixed up all my leftovers and added 2 eggs and made something like a friedrice, without rice! Yup ist was very tasty, but no recipe! Some times, 1 potato, 1 onion and 1 tomato als brings lots of ideas! Your food sounded really yummy!

Thats nice... Its good that your husband is creative and you not choosy...

Can he come cook at our house? LOL. I'm terrible without a recipe, and my husband doesn't cook. Every once in awhile I'll throw a few things together, just to see what will happen... it's generally better when I don't!

I used to be, I mean before I got with my hubby I was a single parent with my eldest boy and I had hardly a penny to rub together and so I would often be found in the kitchen experimenting with various ingredients to see what cheap meals I could come up with. I did quite well too at times!

oncemore my first response just flew away. yes I got really good at making new recipes from older leftovers and actually coming up with delicious results. Even my husband said the second time around dish was even more delicious than the first. that meant a lot to me as it came from a man who had cooked for a living. even my son who was picky liked my new creations.

Sometimes I can make simple things from scratch but, anything more complicated and I am done! lol

Yes i am good in creating things from scratch. Nowadays that people are really saving because of worldwide crisis, we need to think and do something from scratch. If we have leftover food, i can recycle them into a new recipes. Leftover spaghetti sauce wil be a pizza bread in the afternoon for snacks. Leftover chicken or pork viand will be a delicious friend rice by dinner. left over fried fish will have a sauce for the next meal and so on and so forth. We really have to think to help each other save.

Most of my recipes are inspired recipes that I just make up as I go along. I usually have an idea of the finished product and work my way backwards from that. I would start with a basic skill and build my dinner around that. For instance, I like to have roast chicken, and roasted vegetables in the same pot that way I get my meat and veg together. If i'm in a stir-fry mood, I build my dinner in the frying pan. The odd time I want a stew, I put everything in a pot and turn it on to cook low and slow. Every one of those is just a basic skill without a recipe, they just each have their own "regulars". Potatoes in stew, onions in everything, and soy sauce in the stir-fry.

I love to create new dishes or make different versions of old favorites depending on what I have in my fridge and pantry. The other day I had a few potatoes, half a cauliflower, a bit of cheese (the kind that melt) that had seen better days and eggs. I boiled the potatoes and steamed the cauliflower. Buttered a pan a put sliced potaotes, cauliflower and bits of cheese. Then I put 3 eggs in the blender with salt, pepper and a bit of paprika and put it over it. To the oven. YUMMY!!! And very unexpensive. For a whole meal you can add a green salad on the side.