Recipe Collection Meme

Felicia over at The Web Sorceress Cooks has tagged me for a new meme she's created. So here goes.....

Recipe Collection Meme

rec*i*pe - a set of instructions for making something from various ingredients

1. Where do you obtain the recipes you prepare?

I get my recipes from many, many sources. I would say my biggest source is the internet. Between Cooking Light, the Cooking Light Bulletin Board, Epicurious and Martha Stewart's Everyday Food, I have more recipes available to me than I'll ever be able to try in a lifetime. I think I may be one of the very few foodies who does not collect cookbooks. Not that I don't have any - I do - but I'm usually too fickle to commit to buying them.

2. How often do you cook a new recipe?

This can vary quite a bit depending on my mood. Lately I've been trying one or more new recipes each week, but there are times when I get too busy and rely on old standbys. I like to cook both ways - with a recipe or by winging it.

3. How do you store your favorite recipes?

My favorite recipes are stored in Mastercook and/or on my blog. I have definitely fallen behind on getting my recipes onto Mastercook now that I've been blogging. Sounds like a good winter project - updating Mastercook!

4. How large is your to-try pile? Is it organized? How?

What is not saved on Mastercook or various online cookbooks (I have recipes stored on Epicurious, Food Network, and Cooking Light), I store in a 3-ring binder. Most of them are organized into categories, but the pile waiting to be filed is growing quite large. See above regarding good winter projects...

5. What is the oldest recipe in your to-try pile?

Oh gosh - I have no idea. I have recipes I know have been there for at least 8 years, probably longer.

6. Are you really ever going to make all those recipes in your to-try pile?

No. Which inevitably invites the question - why hold onto them? Because. I might want to make it some day. You never know.

7. Do you follow a recipe exactly, modify as you go, or 'What Recipe?' I invent new recipes every time I cook.

I like to do all of the above. If I'm making something entirely new and unfamiliar, I will follow a recipe and perhaps not do much modifying. However, it's pretty rare that I don't modify as least something in a recipe - a little more of this, a little less of that and NONE of that, thank you. I have become comfortable enough with cooking that I do a lot more winging-it or cooking without a recipe. It's fun and challenging!

8. What is one new recipe that you're scared to try?

Anything involving candy. I can't make candy to save my life. I tried brittle once and ended up with a brick of crystallized sugar. What a waste of some prefectly lovely almonds!

And I'm tagging:

*Tag at least one new food blogger for this meme: Exploring the Silver Spoon
*Tag at least one food blogger you visit regularly but never interacted with: Dessert Comes First (at least I don't remember interacting.....it's hard to keep track!)
*Tag at least one food blogger you constantly visit and leave comments: Culinary in the Desert
*Tag anyone else you want: A Veggie Venture

meme