Eat Dance Live

So if you haven't guessed already, I actually have a very hard time following recipes (and perhaps rules in general). Every time I read a recipe I'm suppose to follow, I always think things like "well that's probably not enough cinnamon" or "1 whole cup of coconut butter, really?" and I always want to mess with the perfect proportions laid out by the wonderful person who took the time to put a cookbook together for me. Working through Meredith's ebook has given me an ethic I have rarely stuck to. Because I wanted to make my reviews of her recipes the most authentic and 'true to the source' as possible, I told myself I would NOT allow myself to mess with her recipes until after I had made them all at least once. While one of her new recipes is currently sleeping in a warm, dry place overnight, I made another attempt at her Chocolate Mousse Pie last night. However, because I had already made it once , I allowed myself to tweak it. I couldn...

WARNING : Recipes are like the Pirate Code, they’re just guidelines I find exact proportions in cooking totally overrated. I love the way old medieval recipes were written: they just listed ingredients and then gave you a rough idea of how to assemble them. I admire the confidence that old recipes required that you have in the kitchen, the ‘just wing it’ attitude that compels you to trust your ability as a cook. Consider this awesome fourteenth century recipe for apple pie from The Forme of Cury compiled in 1390 by the master cooks of King Richard III: XXVII For to make Tartys in Applis “Tak gode Applys and gode Spycis and Figys and resons and Perys and wan they are wel ybrayed colourd with Safron wel and do yt in a cofyn and yt forth to bake wel.” In other words, mix together apples, pears, raisins, figs and spices—probably cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves and saffron—mix and put it in a pieshell, the ‘cofyn’, and bake. That’s it! Seems very low maintenance, doesn’t it? It...