I Need Another Recipe Like I Need a Hole in the Head

Tags: , ,

{This post contains affiliate links.}

If you are married to or dating a chef, you need another recipe or cookbook like you need a hole in the head.

Seriously!

I say that jokingly, but it’s true!

The problem is not the NEED for a recipe, it’s the NEED TO FIND the recipe you want to make and the MATH SKILLS TO SCALE DOWN THE RECIPE so you don’t end up with 5 gallons of salad dressing.  And then, HOW TO ORGANIZE these recipes that you’ve now converted into a home quantity!

With my husband being in his kitchen at work the majority of the time, the planning and cooking of meals at home falls to me.  Meal planning is not something that comes naturally to me, but without it, we would eat horribly and would spend an absolute fortune on food!  While I don’t always use recipes when I cook, I love to try new things and am constantly looking for new ideas.

As I write this, there are currently over 400 cookbooks on the shelves in our home and over 10,000 recipes and 150 e-cookbooks on my chef/husband’s Google Drive.  Thank goodness Google Drive does a good job with searching or I would never find anything!

Apparently this vast quantity of recipes still is not enough for this chef’s wife as I still pin things on Pinterest that look interesting to me.  I place them on a board called “Food Ideas.”

Why Food IDEAS?

IDEAS . . . because almost every time I try a recipe that I’ve found online, it doesn’t work.  Ugh!!  Why is that??????  Maybe it’s because I compare everyone to my chef/husband and Cook’s Illustrated.  Hmmmm . . . I can’t help it!  I’m married to a Chef!

Each time, I show my chef/husband the recipe that didn’t work, he immediately says, “It didn’t work because . . .”  You think I would have learned by now.   But apparently not!

I recently started showing him the recipe/idea first and he usually says, “I have a recipe for that.” (BIG SURPRISE!)  Most of the time I end up making that one.  Sometimes I’ll give the online recipe a try with a few recommendations from him.  Other times, I delete the pin and move on with my life.

I follow quite a few food bloggers, not usually for recipes but for ideas.  (Just like my husband follows blogs and looks at cookbooks and magazines.)  Until I recently started using Pinterest, I never really had a good system for organizing my ideas.  Bookmarks in Google Chrome are just words and I’m such a visual person.  I would bookmark something and then never look at it again.  I like the pictures (as long as they are good) AND words and Pinterest seems to be working well for me to organize ideas.

But now what do I do with the ideas that have been tweaked or with things I use a lot and love?  And more importantly, how can I easily share them with people when they ask (which happens a lot)?  Pinterest doesn’t work for that if you need to tweak something.

I need another recipeSo, I decided to add a Recipe section to my blog (you can find it in the navigation at the top) . . . not because we all need more recipes in our life . . . but for myself.  Remember the title of the post – I need another recipe like I need a hole in the head?

I tend to have a bad memory and when someone asks me for a recipe (which happens often since I am married to a chef), it’s much easier to send them to my website where they can search for it, than to write myself a note to remember to email them an Excel file of the recipe.  (Maybe I already have a hole in my head which is why I am so forgetful.  I’ll have to think about that one.)

Perfect example of a need for this . . . the other night my husband did a cooking demonstration for the ladies at our church.  We decided not to kill a tree and print out all the recipes for 50+ ladies and just post them on this site.  Much easier!  Plus, I will be able to find them in the future when I want to make them again and not have to scale the recipe down each time I want to make it!

My main goal for this blog is to connect with other chef’s wives and significant others and to share a bit about what it’s like to combine restaurant and family life to those outside the restaurant industry.  

I promise I’m not changing my focus and I won’t start throwing recipes at you every day.  If you are interested in that, you can follow me over on Bloglovin’ and see what food bloggers I read regularly.

The recipes will be on the site for my use and you are welcome to peek at them if you would like. They will only be things we have personally tried and that work (in our ordinary Whirlpool oven and stove). Recipes are a part of my life as a chef’s wife.  I can’t ignore them.  My life seems to revolve around food.  I just can’t get away from it.

So now that I’ve shared how many recipes and cookbook are in our home, what about you?  I have heard from a few other chef’s wives/significant others about their husband’s addiction to cookbooks and recipes. Chef’s feel free to comment as well.

What about those of you who are not a chef or married to one?  I personally know some of you who are known for baking and who would be in big trouble if a certain Coconut Cake was not brought to a church activity.  (I won’t mention any names.)  How many recipes and cookbooks do you have?

So count them up (or give me your best estimate).  Post it in the comments below!  I’d love to know!

Happy cooking!

 

 

2 Comments

  1. Quy

    Me and my girlfriend are both cooks but we don’t nearly have that many books. Though it is starting to add up! We probably have 40+ between the two of us 🙂

    Reply
    • Jennifer

      40 is still a lot! It’s funny how fast they add up. With technology and ebooks, it’s now so much easier to store them. 🙂 Wish ebooks would have been around 20 years ago. We would have a lot more space in the garage.

      Reply

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *