How do you rate the recipes that you try, and at which rating do you keep it?

K

karennoca

Well-known member
I rate my recipes this way"

No

Very good

Excellent

Awesome

I keep from Very Good to Awesome. After so many years of cooking, I can tell if a recipe is going to be good. Now and then I have a failure, that does not meet my standards. Anything between, NO and Very Good, gets tossed.

 
H & I developed a grading based on 3 categories:

How long it takes to make: S M L
Degree of difficulty: 1 - 3............ 1 is easy, 3 is complex
How much we liked it: 1 - 10........... 10 is food for the gods and us

If it does not make it past 5 on the likeability scale, I chuck the recipe but keep note that I have tried it so I don't make the mistake again. In other words, it stays listed in the index with a note regarding its disappearance.

 
I tend to rate like you, just ok won't get a repeat

things almost need to hit an emotional component: delish, yummy, comfort...

So it's more like:

really like it
fabulous
awesome/special occasion for company or to serve the pope/queen

 
I'm on the hunt for a collection of what Ina Garten calls "Blue Ribbon" recipes. Anything less?

Why bother?

 
In terms of making the exact recipe, I wouldn't redo anything less than 9. But those below always

contribute to experience and often lead to 'my own' creations that become likeable. If I think something has promise, I don't mind rewriting it immediately after making and disliking it.

Honestly, I find it more fun these days to create my own. But I must admit that only the experience of what works and what doesn't, can guide me through that process.

And with all the ethnic contributions we can find now, the possibilities will last longer than I will.

 
I use the "hubby" barometer...5 "mmms" is a keeper.

If I'm testing recipes, we actually talk about what we like and don't like about a particular dish. Would we like it in a different application or presentation? We have so many ways to cook so many different things that recipes don't repeat a lot, unless they're the base for something else...Michael's Carnitas, for instance. I love the way the meat comes out and it's versatile. Like Traca, I tend to tweak and play until I hit the "eureka" recipe! Love the term too!

 
I write "boring!" on it, but then I keep that around. Because...sure enough...the whole

reason I made it in the first place was because the ingredients "spoke" to me.

Which means, with my sieve of a brain, some day in the near future, I'll see that same recipe, forget that I've made it and try it again. Hopefully, some synapsis will fire off and remind me of the "boring" evaluation.

 
The problem I find is that one person's "10" is another's "5"

I have a lot of recipes I would have tossed but for that ONE person who goes ga-ga over it. I note that on the recipe and keep it. No matter how perfect and tweaked a recipe is, each person has their own taste buds...for better or worse smileys/smile.gif

 
I was flipping through my "old recipe" folder and found one with Dinah Shore entertaining.

Because, growing up in western Pennsylvania in a Polish/Ukranian/Serbian/German household, Mexican was as thrilling as it got.

She made chicken enchiladas "for a group" and I reviewed the enchilada sauce. It used ten (as in TEN!!! As in even more than NINE!) different cans of ingredients, from canned chili to canned soup to canned sauce.

Apparently, I must have thought this would be a "winner" recipe for me, but now that I have so few brain cells left, I'm pretty sure it will never get off the page and into my kitchen.

I swear I'm going to add up the recipe's sodium count and post it. I'm pretty sure its Native American name is "Salt Lick".

 
Necessary to remember for the next morning. That reminds me that H bought me a small

binder so that I could write down the 'recipe' when I was creating something because invariably (I think only my mother used that word until now) I wouldn't pay much attention to what I was doing and the little nuances would escape me when we wanted me to recreate something that was successful.

 
Enchilada Sauce (aka "Salt Lick Sauce") courtesy of Dinah Shore

1 med size onion, grated (0 sodium)
2 TBL veg oil (0 sodium)
1 16-oz can tomatoes, chopped (1040 mg sodium)
1 16-oz can chicken broth (1140 mg sodium)
4 8-oz cans tomato sauce (3780 mg sodium)
4 10-oz cans mild enchilada sauce (6480mg sodium)
3 10-oz cans condensed tomato soup (3600 mg sodium)
1 10-oz can HOT chile salsa (1620 mg sodium)
1/2 tsp salt (Why, Dinah Shore? Why? WHY???)
1/4 tsp pepper (Because I'm sure Dinah's taste buds recognized the elusive absence of this ingredient.)
1/2 tsp sugar (Ditto. What she said above)
Dash liquid red pepper seasoning (aww, com'on! who are they kidding? The inside of your mouth would be shedding flesh by this time.)

Saute onion in oil for 3 minutes. Spend the next eternity opening cans and dumping them into an acid vat. Bring to boil, lower to simmer and cook for 1 hour or until the liquid has evaporated and all that remains is Lot's Wife.

Freezes well.

Makes 3 quarts of sauce, with a whopping total of 17,660 mg of SODIUM.

Use to sauce 30 enchiladas or to kill your enemies.

 
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