Today the Dining In section of the NYT has an article about Recipe Deal Breakers meaning what would make you pass on a recipe.
Most of my reasons are the same as the ones in the article. Things that have crazy ingredients or take a team of people to accomplish or have zillions of steps. “General fussiness” the article calls it. Along the same lines: something that takes too many pans.
When I read a recipe that wants me to blanch something in boiling water and then cool in an ice bath and then put in a bowl and set aside and while that’s cooling heat something up, strain it into a blender and once blended pour into a bowl and refrigerate and that’s only the first two steps in the recipe, I’m ready to move on.
I don’t deep fry. I don’t even like to shallow fry. Too messy and then I have this jug of oil to deal with.
Bob is a good sport and will eat a plate of just about anything but I try to avoid stuff I know he won’t like or won’t agree with him. He has a hard time with recipes that rely heavily on tomatoes. He’s not a big fan of legumes.
One of my favorite things to make is soup and I have one cookbook where every single soup recipe calls for a cup of heavy cream. While heavy cream makes everything delicious, we do like to button our pants so I don’t make rich recipes on a regular basis.
I don’t mind labor intensive recipes but I have to have a whole weekend to plan around and it has to be something will last for more than one meal and will be really delicious.
In my general cooking I don’t like things that take a lot of babysitting. That’s the one bummer about bread-making is that you have be there to do certain steps at certain times so even if you want to run a quick errand or go for a walk you need to keep an eye on the clock.
My favorite recipes are things you can make in one pot or pan and have plenty of leftovers.