I hate recipes

I mess up a bunch when cooking. I try a lot of different things and most of the time it's my first time trying something. Even if I've made something before, I often tinker with it the next time and never make it quite the same way, so every time I cook it's kind of new. Because I do that, I end up with a fair number of duds. Often the more adventurous I get, the more icky it is to eat, though every so often I come across a pleasant surprise. To a large extent, by ignoring recipes and experimenting all the time, I'm being really inefficient. I'm basically reinventing the wheel. Everything I've done, I'm sure someone else has done before me. Then again, I feel a lot more creative doing things my way. I like getting to understand my ingredients and discovering new ways of cooking. And it's not like I'm doing anything terribly creative that no one's ever done before. It's just stuff I've never done before (like making fried rice yesterday- it was yummy!). And I didn't look at a recipe before making my fried rice. After eating it, I could see a million ways it could be improved, and I bet if I'd looked at a recipe, I would have known to do some of that stuff in advance. But I like figuring out the right way to do something more than following the directions for how to do something. Sometimes when you follow the directions, you don't know which steps are integral and which ones are simply recommended. You don't know which quantities are to taste and which ones aren't. I think recipes get you to a pretty tasty place pretty quickly, but I think in the long run they can stifle creativity and growth a little. Also, I kind of hate the hassle of having to have recipes kept away somewhere in a book or having to run back and forth to the computer and then having to measure each individual thing precisely because you aren't sure if erring a little up or a little down is going to make a difference. Now I'll deal with recipes for baking because baking is a big creepy mystery to me. I feel like every ingredient is precisely proportioned and any small deviation could result in disaster. With cooking in a pan, on the other hand, a little of anything give or take is not going to make a big difference. Sure the result may be a little lackluster, but it's not inedible or anything.

I'll still reference recipes now and again, especially if I'm really at a loss as to quantity or about how to cook a new veggie, but I feel like I'll remember it better and understand it better if I just muddle my way through one meal at a time.