Cooking Notes

[KuyasKitchen]

When I cook (Q or otherwise), I keep track of what I do. I like being able to repliacate what I've done when someone says "hey, that was excellent!"

I setup a wiki on a home server and now keep daily notes about what I cooked, exact measurements, recipes, notes of what reactions ... and organize those notes by both day and recipe made.

I'm curious, what do the rest of you do?

[Kevin]

I've got all of my notes in a clusterfark, all over 3 or 4 hard drives. Totally disorganized. I hope someone offers a better system.

[Desert Dweller]

Me? I strictly fly by the seat of my pants unless I am following someone else's receipe. I never take notes, merasurements or anything else. I approximate the ingredients of prior accomplishments and adjust to taste.

BTW, good to see you back here. Seems you've been MIA for a while.

[Rich Parker]

I opened up a web site and put all of my ramblings in there so I don't forget and have to search through all of my different computers.

I used to run around looking for that recipe or that picture and it is either on my work computer, couple different home computers, or my laptop. Thank goodness that madness is gone.

[Crazy Harry]

Notes? My secret sauce is secret, even I don't know whats in it.

[EatonHoggBBQ]

I created a form in Excel to record my cooking data and results in and have the sheets in a three ring binder sorted by name. Ribs, butts, thighs........etc.

[MilitantSquatter]

I did that briefly but I noticed quickly that I rarely ever referred back to it. I prefer to work of memory through repitition or liked to experiment. For me, that's part of the fun but I can see how some would prefer the documented approach too and look back on occasion.

Used to do the same with my lifting training logs when I used to compete. For years, I wrote down every exercise, weight, rep count, rest between sets etc. As I became more in tune to how i needed to adapt based on cirumstances, what I enjoyed at a given point in time etc. referring to old notes where abandoned but results were as good or better at times.

my grandmother is closing in on 90 yrs and still makes some of the best Italian food I've ever had. She's not referred to a recipe book ever. It's just engrained in her and she's passed that along verbally to our family just like it was taught to her.

[dicko]

I have no idea what an exact measurement is and I keep no notes.
Drives wifey crazy.

[warren]

i use word

[zydecopaws]

After years of listening to the wife complain about never having the same thing fixed the same way twice, I started a web site at the beginning of the year and blog about all my cooks. I even posted a few recipes where I actually took the time to measure things.

Having said that, most of the time I still revert to old behavior and, like DD and many others here, fly by the seat of my pants. After awhile you begin to learn what works, what doesn't, which spices go well together, and which should never be brought together in any circumstances.