Are you a creative cook?

I have a recipe for a lemon picnic Bundt cake...I eliminated the lemon ingredients and substituted rose water in the glaze for the lemon juice and put cardamom and chopped walnuts in the cake...it's a very popular among some of my friends and it is original.

I tend to get the basic recipe that I need ..
then as I cook it, I know to add this or that, or take away this or that, I add what flavours I like and then I end up with my own dish..

Sometimes I read a recipe for something and I know instantly what to add or remove and what I won't like in it..

And also I do create my own recipes all the time, usually they are basic enough .. anyone could do it if they tried..

Like soups,
casserole, etc etc
I have recipies by memory of meals my Granny & Mum would have made.. so I love them,, as Mum & Granny are dead now.

I experiment daily and add new spices to the food ..i rarely follow a recipe 😁

I first sampled Broccoli Casserole at a potluck at work...it was a popular dish. I decided to make it but instead of frozen chopped broccoli I put fresh broccoli, instead of cream of mushroom soup I added fresh sliced mushrooms that had been sauteed, some milk and a little butter, instead of instant rice I cooked some Basmati rice and used that, and instead of using a jar of Cheez-Whiz I substituted grated cheddar cheese, I also added a tablespoon of finely minced onion, black pepper,and about 2 cups of diced steamed chicken cubes and I put it in the casserole dish I sprinkled the top with paprika. Baked it till it was bubbly...made too much and brought some to work and shared it with a co-worker....she ate it and told me it was really good and said "Mine doesn't taste this way"...so I told her what I did differently....I like the fresher ingredients instead of a bunch of expensive processed items, and adding the chicken made it a complete meal.

Gunner: Don't get me wrong, it's good medicine for a lot of different reasons, but it's almost like aspirin in what it does...it even makes blood platelets less sticky like aspirin. I never craved ginger till I started getting rheumatoid arthritis over 20 years ago and that's when I started making ginger tea, making crystallized ginger, and cooking with it in a lot of dishes. Not that many of my herbal books told what all it was good for and I learned it myself, now can read many articles about it. Have read that it's believed that ginger can dissolve cancer in the body (as well as raw pineapple, kiwi fruit and other fruits)....you can dissolve meat if you put raw ginger on it and it stays too long to marinate.

The extent of my cooking creativity is like going the extra mile to melt cheese on something i just heat up either in a convection oven, frying pan or the microwave:)

I usually start out with a recipe and alter it a LOT sometimes.

I love to recreate my fav dishes from certain restaurant!

I made several vegan dishes for a recent vegan house guest, slept better at night because I wasn't eating much meat each day.

i live in NYC, sometimes i go to chinatown markets and bring a shopping bag full of goodies home,
sticky rolls! yum yum.

Pattie i seldom eat foreign food its usually Rubbish except Dates and Figs i like those but i found a whole lot of Spices from India so tried some its not bad in small amounts , i got some boxes of stuff still here labeled SHAN Chaat Masala , Dahi Bara Chaat , White Korma ,and 2 boxes of Curry powder mix , huh i still got 2 boxes of Rafhan Vanilla custard mix too

i try other stuff too but have to be careful , like i have this chicken powder and if i put too much its too chickeny and some spice from India just a dash of that

i have to get the makings for curry now.... i'm on a mission, 😎

i eat a lot of rice, i love spicy on top
anything really

I'm creative when I don't have the right ingredients.

i make everything a little too spicy for most people

I love experimenting.

I need some heat! lol

Gunner: I use ginger for a substitute for pain-killers....they say it thins the blood so efficiently that you can get too much and cause a brain bleed... I have to limit how much ginger I have...and I have several different ways of consuming it.

I love that song...it seems it was in a movie but I can't find any evidence of that on the internet...it is almost haunting song to me because I'm sure I heard it in a 60's movies.

Pattie , some store threw these spices out i came across them when i was foraging around , big boxes and bags full of stuff that never sold i guess

I do that quite a bit. I make some Persian recipes with chicken and add either fresh or powdered ginger and a little turmeric. Adds color and flavor.

Curry! omg i haven't made Curry in ages! now you got me going
yumm the hotter the better

Gunner: I make my salmon almost that way except I usually add either parsley and some minced onions too. But I don't know what mirin is.

They don't have it listed on IMDB and that's about the best website I know to give credit for anything in movies.

I always follow it the first time and then I change it later if I think it needs it. Sometimes I don't use a recipe at all.

Suzyq: Me too, I go to large Asian supermarket in Oklahoma City, and buy too many things....they have a lot of goodies there.

Haha Gunner: There's a food photo blog called Food Porn and another called Yummly, lots of great ideas for recipes there.

Gunner: I love pickled ginger, that's really a good type there.

haha Gunner...I'm craving Teriyaki chicken but tonight I'm going to settle for this...for your listening pleasu[media=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zpOc9n7dlI]

FurryFace: Those Shan spice mixes are my favorite brand...I have about a dozen of them here and use them here and at work too...made curries and Biryani quite a bit. Yes some of them are really hot but the spices are helpful for getting rid of inflammation in arthritis.

I enjoy adding things that wouldn't be "normal" just to see what it tastes like...i've been disappointed more times than not... LOL

Furry: I bet you'd roast if you ate Indian food from my favorite restaurant here...so spicy and flavorful yet I can't stop eating it.