I have this vegan cookbook that's full of alternative flours and sugars. I just use regular APF and white sugar in those recipes. I wouldn't know where to find the specialty items in the book.

But when it comes to equipment, recipes make me feel like ooh, I want that now!

i agree-- i find so many recipes now that just assume we all have stand mixers. i don't! (yet).

i recently made a recipe that told me to brown chopped celery and carrots, stirring occasionally and "meanwhile" wash a pound of mushroooms and slice them. well, by the time i was halfway through the mushrooms, the celery and carrots were burned and i had to start over. i wish they hadn't assumed i was chopping at warp speed!

I don't like it when the recipe specifies how many teaspoons of olive oil to brown meat in. I find it tiresome and invasive.

Or when the ingredients list chopped onion in cups, as though I'm going to chop up all my onions first and then measure them. Onions are counted in onions. Infuriating!

My pet peeve is when a chef feels obligated to make a well known recipe unique by specifying a hard to find ingredient. Sometimes it is a revelation but often it is just cookbook filler.

I absolutely HATE when they list sizes of vegetables (3 large potatoes, 2 small tomatoes). WTF does that mean??? Can't they just use weight instead? So much easier and more accurate!

^^yes! The oil amount always bugs me, and worse than when than when it reads a cup of chopped onions, it will say "a small onion," or medium or whatever - it's so relative. Maybe I'm getting too literal, but I always get confused to what a small, medium, or large vegetable is.

I hate when a recipe says it takes 30 minutes to make, but the ingredients list goes something like this: 3 onions, chopped; 2 cloves of garlic, minced; 1 pound of boneless skinless chicken breasts cut into 1/2 inch chunks . . . The prep time takes more than the recipe does. Just call it an hour start to finish!

@Doug, that's so interesting - I was JUST discussing that onion issue with another recipe developer. She said she feels that she has to include specifications for cups of chopped onions these days because some cooks just buy chopped onion from the store -- instead of buying and chopping the whole onions.

a packet of yeast. I don't buy packets, I have a jar of the stuff, and I always have to hop on the internet to google how much yeast is in a "packet". I look it up pretty often, but never manage to remember the conversion and also don't remember to write it down.

doug, i'm with you! i hate cups of chopped veg. it leaves you with bits of left-over veg (if you're a stickler for following instructions) or, if you're like me, you just ignore the whole measurement and add however many onions you feel. i actually resent being told things that are obvious, but then again, to some they might not be. perhaps that's why i use recipes as suggestions only.

No question...biggest pet peeve is the "one incredibly hard-to-find ingredient." Food Network recipes are INFAMOUS for this.

To all these, I will add recipes that assume you have a food processor, and for some reason word their directions so it sounds like "YOU CAN NOT COMPLETE THIS RECIPE" without one.

I just ignore recipe instructions that call for heating up olive oil to saute Italian sausage! Sausage has a ton of fat in it already and the recipe even calls for draining it. That's a silly waste of oil.

I also hate it when the first thing to do is pre-heat the oven. It's wasteful to pre-heat the oven while you do an hour's worth of prep work. Besides, I have gas oven that heats up fast. I once saw a magazine recipe for cookies that called for you to preheat the oven, then ended having you chill the dough for two hours before baking!

I hate recipes that assume I don't know how to buy food or cook. Greanted I like to cook but recipes that assume that I am buying gross shortcuts (packaged onions) or buy my vegetables from the salad bar or combine nasty processed stuff with fresh stuff to produce what?

I agree with many of these, many of which make me smile. :) But honestly, my biggest pet peeve is recipes that are written in running paragraph form rather than in numbered steps. I know, that's how Kitchn's recipes are--sorry! But I'm already prone to skipping/missing things, so numbers really help me. Usually when I print recipes from online, I copy-and-paste and then add the numbers myself. (I'm so OCD...)

I'm a big fan of 101cookbooks, but it's always cracked me up that Heidi always specifies that you use "good-tasting vegetable stock/broth."

Dang, and here I wanted to use some awful tasting crap broth.

I have a cookbook that is very much against anything convenient so everything has a million ingredients. I spent hours finding special ingredients and prepping them for a sauce to add to the recipe, only to find it was garam masala (tasting the same as the mix I already use) or KETCHUP! For the love of kitchenaid, include a note where I can opt to take a shortcut rather than slave away for the "authentic" flavors!

I'd disagree with a couple of the above.

1) A food processor has changed my life LOL, it can do so many things that a blender cannot (yes, I used to be one of the "I only need a blender" people).

2) Preheating the oven is super important when it comes to baking. Putting something into a cold oven that is meant to rise will probably take twice as long to be finished, and you risk the possibility of having it uneven. That being said, a working oven usually shouldn't take more than about 20 minutes max to preheat. Also, it's important to read a recipe all the way through before you actually start it, thus avoiding scenarios like the cookie one.

I know this is partly my fault, but if a specific ingredient needs to be prepared a certain way (chopped, chilled, etc.) put that in the freaking ingredient list and not just in the instructions. If I'm in a rush and haven't skimmed the recipe I don't know that the eggs should be at room temperature until it's too late.

Two things: recipes that call for regional ingredients and don't give an alternative (I live in Canada- a can of Rotel? No idea what that is), and when recipes call for say, 8 tbsp of butter. Why not just write 1/2 cup?

My #1 pet peeve is unnecessarily using extra bowls, pots, etc. Do I really need to put a strained soup in a different, smaller saucepan than the stock pot I started out with? Really? Or when baking, do I really need to measure something into one bowl only to add it to another bowl? I'm lazy, and washing dishes is not one of my favorite pastimes.

I hate it when the amounts in a recipe are listed as whole even when the instructions claim you use 1/4 here and 3/4 there. I always miss this and end up goofing the recipe's assembly. If the word "divided" isn't beside the ingredient in the list - I'll make this mistake the first time I try to make this recipe. After that I'll write in the word "divided" where needed.

when a recipe says "mix with your hands".

ugh. I am not a child, I like at least "trying" to keep my hands clean.

Obscure ingredients are definitely on the top of my list. Especially when the only way to buy said ingredient means you have a ton left over and nothing to do with it!

Another grrr moment is when recipes call for a ton of flavors that are so subtle I can't tell the difference between adding 10 separate spices or getting garlic happy.

Or the use of self-rising flour. How hard is it to figure out the right amount of levener and salt?

I, me, myself am my sister's pet peeve. She loves my cooking, I cook intuitively, almost never follow recipes. Her question is 'send me the recipe for....' When I start into my usual 'some of this, and some of that...' really torques her off. She is like many of the replies to this post - wants a recipe and wants to follow it! Chill, this is dinner not 'rocket sugery.'

My #1 worst recipe pet peeve only applies to ones printed in a cookbook or magazine, not online: when you have to turn the page halfway through! This kills me. I'm covered with flour/chicken/sauce/whatever and have my hands full, and now I have to turn to page 115? No thanks.

I think more specific items, which get on my nerves now, were less irksome before I spent a lot of time in the kitchen. I strongly prefer the paragraph method of steps-I cook in chunks, and I especially like some website/cookbook author's noting what can be done ahead. My biggest pet peeve is missing ingredients/missing steps. I write off publishers who allow mushroom stir fry recipes to be printed without letting you know when to put the mushrooms in!!

I hate when there is excessive conversational language in the middle of a procedure. Paragraph format is fine for simple recipes--even preferred. But if you're going to give me a list of steps, don't act like we're chatting on the phone. Put that in the intro.

Give me what I need, no more and no less. And this is why I heart Mark Bittman.

The thing about recipes is that they're based on the conditions found in that particular test kitchen. And imagine how long a recipe would be if it included every kitchen equipment scenario: strain using a fine-mesh strainer/chinoise/coffee filter/cheesecloth/super bag/etc . . . Also some things can be substituted, but at the same time, if I use a special type of chocolate and you use Nestle's chocolate chips and it doesn't come out correctly, then people will just say, this recipe sucks, it doesn't work. Many times variable makes all the difference.

@Jamie-what else are you straining your liquids into? Because if it comes out of the stockpot, wouldn't you be straining it into something else? Or did I miss something? You'd still have to pour the liquids into another container, then pour it back into the stock pot, so you're still washing two pots.

I can't stand when the recipe dares to critique my groceries. Of course I know an organic, range-free chicken will probably taste better, but at more than 3 times the price of a grocery store chicken I can't always afford it!

It also irritates me when recipes demand using fresh herbs when they aren't always necessary.

i basically just hate it when a recipe calls for buttermilk. i don't have buttermilk. stop trying to make me buy it.

@ames29 - I think the tbsp of butter thing is related to how sticks of butter are packaged (at least in the US - not sure about Canada). The paper wrapper on the butter I buy has tbsp markings, so if I need 4 tbsp of butter, I just cut the stick in half. I have seen some packaging that also shows 1/4 cup, 1/2 cup, etc., but usually I see it with only the tbsp markings.

Any recipe which requires a food processor or especially a stand mixer. If the recipe does not provide alternative directions, it will not be made by me. I have nearly stopped reading the Kitchn on several occasions because of this and have not purchased several promising cookbooks because of it. They are SPECIAL EQUIPMENT people. SPECIAL.

Agree with omster! The Tartine cookbook is notorious for recipes split over 2 pages and constant flipping. GRR!!

I think the more you cook or bake, the more understood things start to get grating. I hate when a recipe says to sweat onions. No...you mean cook them. Don't tell me to use a sifter to sift together ingredients when you know darn well its much easier to give it a good stir with a whisk. Things like that.

My FAVORITE though my husband had me laughing at the other day. I caught him making a box of macaroni and cheese a few days ago and he was pulling out my pyrex cups to measure out 8 cups of water to boil the noodles...Thanks Velvetta. I had no clue how much water to use to boil macaroni. But sure enough, something so simple as filling a pot with enough water, he was unsure of!

I'm with Ketherian, I hate when a recipe calls for a cup of sugar but some goes in here and some goes there. I love the way Joy of Cooking recipes are written with the ingredients (and amounts) listed in the step where they are used, so it's easy to follow step by step, but they're bolded so it's easy to skim through and see what is needed.

I also dislike having ingredients on one page and instructions on the next so that I have to keep flipping the pages back and forth.

My biggest pet peeves are for crock pot recipes. It bothers me when the process is any more than chop the ingredients and put it in the crock pot. No, I don't want to brown the meat. No, I will not deglaze the pan. That is the whole point of the crock pot. Throw it all in and turn it on.

Also, when a crock pot recipe doesn't give you a low setting instruction.

Also, when there is something you have to add half way through a crock pot recipe.

Man, a lot of things really bother me.

I have a few healthy recipe books, but all of them gives me a guide in the back for what changes to make if I am using the less healthy options.
Yes, all my cookbooks except for one.
One has a guide if you want to go even healthier by listing exotic foods I have never heard of, and at the bottom, it gives me a lecture about how it will not give me options on if I use 2% milk or regular flour, and it lists all the ways it's going to kill me compared to how long I'll live with other ingredients.
Never using that cookbook again.

@katlian, TOTALLY!

1 cup of sugar, divided.

In the recipes that will translate to 1/4 cup sugar at the beginning, reserve 2 tsp for the end and the rest in the middle. Cause saying that up front would have been so hard.

Best comment: "This is not rocket surgery."

@Faith, they may not know how many onions are in a cup of pre-chopped onion, but I certainly don't know how many cups of chopped onions are in an onion, either. If you have to make one group or the other unhappy, shouldn't it be the people who are buying pre-chopped onion? Anyway, I've never made a meal that wasn't perfectly good with just a whole onion in it, nor have I ever made anything that wasn't just fine with the zest of a whole lemon, or however many cloves of garlic I feel like peeling. Maybe I'm a radical.

It bugs me when the list of ingredients says 3 tablespoons of oil. And then when it comes time to put in the the oil, you put in all 3 tablespoons only to read later that you were only supposed to put in 1 and use the other 2 for later in the recipe!! I guess it's my fault for not reading the recipe thoroughly before hand, but making it obvious in the initial list would really help!!!

@ohwoah...you do know that you can just add a tablespoon of vinegar or lemon juice to one cup of regular milk, right?

excessive steps or ingredients that aren't REALLY necessary or don't make much of a difference. AND rare/hard-to-find ingredients that cost too much when it isn't even the focal flavour of the dish. that's just dumb.

My own recipe pet peeves would be:
- assuming that I own a stand mixer or a food processor (I don't!)
- really specific amounts of ingredients, when the amount should be very flexible (does it really matter if I use 1/4 cup of chopped parsley? I don't think so. I'm just going to grab a handful off of the bunch and call it good. Ditto on the 2 tbsp of oil to saute some onions. I know how to saute onions, and I am not going to measure out the oil to do it.)
- hiding ingredient prep in the directions (I would rather see "2 apples, peeled and diced" as an ingredient, rather than "2 apples" as an ingredient and then steps 1 and 2 are peel and dice the apples.)
- hiding long resting/holding times in the directions (If something needs to rest overnight before cooking or serving, that needs to be REALLY obvious when I am skimming over a recipe. Not something I only discover when I am doing a careful read-through and find it at the end of step 7.)

Personally, I use recipes as an idea source - I check the ingredients to see if it sounds like something I would like to try, and if so, I skim the directions to get a general idea of the process, and then let my experience take me from there. I don't have a copy of the recipe with me in the kitchen unless it's something really special. While I don't *expect* that recipes would be formatted with that process in mind, it would certainly be nice. :)

mine is when the ask for 1 scant cup of flour or 1 tablespoon and a pinch of salt. drives me insane!

Also the tablespoons of butter thing, why can't they say it in cups?????

Oh and using "only in america" foods. I can't find them here in Canada.

I'm echoing what other people have said about equipment-specific instructions, and adding bread machines to that list. Frankly, they're a much worse offender - at least with a stand mixer they'll tell you to whisk the egg whites and cream the butter and sugar. Most bread machine recipes are just a list of ingredients with the instruction to "add in the order the manufacturer suggests." Yeah, that's real helpful there, buddy. I don't mind it when recipes are written to include equipment as long as it's easy to translate into manual labor terms as well, or vice versa.

Agree with the person who brought up unnecessary sullying of excess bowls and pots. When something needs its own container, it's pretty obvious! Maybe this just enrages me because I don't have a dishwasher.

I think I prefer numbered, separate steps. I read recipes through once before starting, but when I'm actually cooking, I sometimes read over steps buried at the end of a longer paragraph.

@Katlian - I remember measuring out the water for Kraft dinner when I was younger, but using the one cup measures. Then when I lived with my first boyfriend he laughed himself silly over this.

One pet peeve is when the recipe has to specify the brand of every item every time it is mentioned in it. I don't need to read 'Robin Hood all purpose flour' 15 times. If you must specify the brand, do so once in the ingredient list, then in the instructions that follow, just say flour.

Another is when a recipe doesn't tell you to reserve an ingredient you might throw away. Such as telling you to drain your can of 'clover leaf flaked light' tuna, then telling you three steps later to use the juice. By then I will have dumped it (or more likely fed it to my cats).

I very much dislike when recipes that need water at some point don't include water in the ingredients list. I had this experience the other day making crackers. I scanned the ingredient list and it simply said flour, oil, salt. I thought, huh that's weird. Then in the steps, it said to add 3/4 cup of water to the mix. But I missed that and ended up with a weird sandlike mixture until I stopped and slowly re-read the recipe. I even consulted a similar recipe in another cookbook, which did the exact same thing.
Just put water in the ingredients list. It's an ingredient, right?

the use of 20 different measuring systems. i would prefer if it all was just in metric.

If a recipe calls for, say, 2 carrots, peeled and diced, I prefer that the ingredients list say: 2 carrots. THEN one of the initial steps (yes, I like numbers or bullets) can be "peel and dice the carrots."

This annoys me so much that if I make a recipe whose result is pleasing, but whose recipe itself is irritating, I'll retype the whole thing to reflect how I want it!

I can't think of anything specific that bothers me but I do know what I LOVE about certain recipes:
--explaining what can be made in advance
--specific freezing instructions
--explanations of what the taste/texture/purpose of rare ingredients are so you know how to make substitutions if necessary
--instructions for leftovers (how to store and how long they keep)

I like the step-by-step instructions short and sweet but I love useful intros and footnotes.

I second kaschwa's comment!

I have a problem when important steps to a recipe (exceptions or other ingredients) are buried in paragraphs with otherwise basic cooking techniques.

I like the way they break recipes down at the bottom of each recipe on cookingforengineers.com, where there's an ingredient and a step associated with it. It's also a good format to simplify recipes to the size of a post-it (my preferred medium for storing recipes.)

i hate when they don't tell you what whatever mixture you're creating is supposed to look like. whether it's supposed to be dry and crumbly or very runny, or a particular color, a little too salty, or not salty enough.

+ a million for all those who said something about archaic measuring systems based on the size of Henry VIII's thumb. Though it's incredibly useful that two tablespoons of butter equals a half an ounce, that's where the conventional system ends for me. Metric, please.

I really, really dislike it when cooking times are off. If you say cook it for 20 minutes on low, it should NOT take more than 25 minutes to cook. I made a dish last night that was an hour off - SO irritating.

Exotic ingredients for my locale. I'm in the middle of Texas, and if it isn't the local population's food list, it is "exotic". Star Anise anyone? Any Cauliflower other than white? Drive an hour south or 3 hours north.

Exotic equipment. Storage space is an issue here. Offer some alternate methods.

Package names followed by "large". Please give me the ounce, gram or whatever weight. Packaging and products are constantly changing sizes. one can of product X is less revealing than the #3 can of X from my ancestor's days.

Recipes without images. Really!? Tease me, Coax me to try the recipe.

Recipes with flowing directions mingled into ingredient list. Easiest way to miss ingredients needed for a shopping list and later while attempting to follow the recipe. A bullet list of ingredients and another bullet or number list of directions are what I prefer.

Dirtying every dish and utensil in the kitchen while preparing the item.

Most disappointing? Futzing with a recipe only to discover it has no flavor or never does what it should have done by following the recipe.
I have a lovely custard pie recipe from a known chef/cook that never sets and a magazine cookie recipe that is more like cake batter than something you could hand shape or use in a cookie press.

@ Waiting For Gateau: the nutritional info for one serving of your finished item on the same page. Cooking for people with various dietary health needs is made SO MUCH easier that I return to books, magazines and blogs which provide this info.

Whoa, I feel like many of you are way too finicky.

Having seen many onions over the years, I have no problem deciding what is a "small" onion and what is a "large" onion. A general weight would be a nice thing to add to a recipe but I can pretty much figure it out. Also, I appreciate when the equipment that might not be found in every kitchen is listed after the ingredients. I always skip recipes that require mini muffin tins.

There are many recipes that really do require a stand mixer or a food processor to turn out well. If they are not, though, I do agree that more descriptive terms should be added than just how long it should be mixed or processed.

Preheating the oven is important for most baked goods, as is sifting for most cakes (and no, whisking is not at all the same thing).

I agree with wanting to know if something is supposed to be a certain temperature at the beginning-- I hate finding out halfway through that my eggs are supposed to be room temperature, or that I was supposed to melt and cool a stick of butter.

I also rarely cook recipes from the internet unless there is a picture.

Any special equipment like a crockpot, stand mixer, or food processor. Some of us live on budgets in apartments where space is at a premium!

Juice of one lemon.

Using a "good amount".

Unnngh. Measure, measure, measure.

Oooh good one, cpa1! I was just thinking I didn't have any real pet peeves with cookbooks, but that is definitely one. That's about half the reason I just gave away my crockpot to my SIL (the other half being that I've never had anything cooked in a crockpot that doesn't taste like it was cooked in a crockpot). If I'm already doing a bunch of cooking...and dirtying pots and pans...what's the crockpot for?

1. Recipes that miss out things from the list of ingredients or stick in extra ones that aren't used - infuriating! I hate re-reading the steps over and over trying to figure out badly written instructions.
2. Packets of yeast, sticks of butter, squares of chocolate, fahrenheit temps - I can never remember the conversions. I really should stick a conversion chart on a wall somewhere but never seem to get round to it.
3. Not noticing that the recipe includes leaving something to sit in the fridge for hours/overnight before you can finish the dish! My fault, but sooo annoying!

Lately it's not recipes, but recipe descriptions that really get to me. For example, when entire paragraphs are written about how the author just can't stand the idea of using that much red food coloring in red velvet cake. Because unless you're consuming red velvet cake 365 days a year, it's really not a big deal.

@MonW - I agree. Any recipe that does not include a nutritional breakdown (with calories) does not get made in my house. I am halfway through an obesity battle and need all the help I can get.

I agree with many of these above, especially recipes calling for obscure ingredients I don't have or can't find and those requiring specific equipment. A dough hook? I don't even know what one looks like and I've been baking and making bread for years. I just skip those recipes and revert to my grandmother's recipes because she definitely didn't have a stand mixer, let alone a dough hook. She used her own little hands.

Yoinks! I personally like having as much info as possible up front - as in, 1 cup chopped onion vs 1 onion, chopped. I figure the recipe is a guideline, afterall, and I can add more or less as I see fit.

Plus I think some people cooking these days (non kitchn.com readers, most likely) aren't doing it very often and detailed recipe instructions reflect that. You might know what 'cream the butter' means, but I'm sure a lot of people have no clue.

I would have to say my pet peeve is when a recipe says to 'sweat the onions', but on med-high or high heat! That would be saute. Sweating is a very low temp with a lid. If you don't know the difference, maybe you shouldn't be writing recipes!

I guess recipe pet peeves don't bother me as much because I just see recipes as suggestions, so if I use my own judgement here or there, it doesn't matter so much.

I do greatly appreciate it when recipes list substitutions, though, in case they're using an ingredient that is a little uncommon but can be replaced.

I also love excess verbiage (blogs like The Pioneer Woman are my favorite kind of recipe) so I guess I'm a bit of a minority there!

I agree with so many of you. I stop looking at recipes with expensive/hard to find ingredients and appliances. I love when they include possible substitutions or alternative methods!

I love this conversation. Battle between the Type A's (must weigh, must measure) and the B's (dash, handful, medium onion)

I'm more of a B myself, but my A friends hate me when they want one of my "recipes"

I just wish there was a picture along with every recipe- it would make me far more likely to try something new....like when you're watching a cooking program and suddenly you have to make what they're making b/c it looks so good?

@caliH: Maybe you could paste a label on your jar of yeast with the packet conversion. You'd have to put a new label on each new jar, but that shouldn't be too much of a bear.

@thenewsmiths (and others) you can bring eggs up to room temperature pretty quickly by putting them in a bowl of luke warm water (maybe 125°F/50-ish°C.

I agree with a lot of the things above...
Also, I can't stand when a recipe for a good old-fashioned meal takes shortcuts like putting all sorts of ingredients with preservatives and added sugar.

I tend to skip over unnecessary tedious steps in recipes. Yes, beating the egg white might make my waffles a tiny bit more fluffy but who wants to try to beat one egg white early on a Sunday morning?

I agree about the expensive/hard to find ingredients if you only need a tiny amount in the recipe and you have to buy a lot a once. I'm not going to visit every store in town looking for two ounces of salt pork, bacon is good enough for me.

It sounds like someone needs to write the Tiny Apartments Cookbook with no special ingredients, no special equipment, and small portions so there aren't a bunch of leftovers.

This whole discussion reminds me of a cartoon (with occasional bad language) http://theoatmeal.com/comics/cook_home

@Doug- totally. Cups of chopped vegetables or tablespoons of chopped herbs. Sigh. I'm left in the produce aisle staring intently at things, likely leaving the grocer questioning my sanity (and who is to say he is wrong).

I also just freaking hate when a recipe writer feels the need to write 10 run on sentences that could just read "Melt butter and mix in to dry ingredients". I'm usually exhausted when I'm cooking and I'm not looking to puzzle out the meaning of life here. I just want to know when to add the eggs.

Similarly, when a recipe mentions at the end that I should have been doing something else since the beginning (i.e. preheating an oven, setting our ingredients to get to room temperature, etc) I just feel my blood boil. I want to scream to the heavens "Well why didn't you just @#$@# say so in the beginning!".

whew. I feel better already :)

Bread recipes that are written with volumetric measurements instead of weights make me want to scream.
Regardless of their content, bread books that do that are unacceptable.

"Season to taste" in the middle of a recipe. I'm not psychic. I have no idea if the seasoning is going to be "to taste" in another hour when dinner's finished. "Devein, if desired" is there anybody out there who wouldn't?!? Just putting it out there makes me question the author's culinary judgment skills.

I dislike recipes telling me how much salt and pepper to put into something. Everyone is different.

I guess it's more of when someone else uses your recipe and then complains about it not having enough salt. Did you taste it? It didn't have enough? You really don't need someone's permission to add more or use less.

anny4930- I don't devein. Never have unless its a particularly nasty one.

I would buy "Tiny Apartments Cookbook". I'm 22, work an entry-level job in a high-rent city, and am completely out of storage space in my narrow galley of a kitchen (no shelves. A foot of countertop. Four cabinets. Discuss).

But to be honest, I make substitutions with ingredients I can afford and creatively use the tools I have available to make really wonderful-tasting food. It's probably never how the recipe writer intended the dish to turn out, but it's mine, it is rarely any worse than delicious, and it's affordable.

I hate the assumption I have or need a stand mixer. For years I resisted even getting a hand mixer - until I realized I absolutely did have to have one to make decent icing. But generally I feel like if I'm going to eat whatever baked good it is, I ought to expend a little extra effort to make up for it. Some things you probably do actually need a stand mixer to make - like marshmallows, and I guess I'll only make those if I'm housesitting at my mom's. All in all that's not bad. Still, the assumption that you *need* one and in fact have one irritates me.

I have a food processor and it has totally opened up a whole new level of home cooked meals for me. The hubs and I discovered this when our first one died and we went a few months without. Now he's always comparing what we eat at his mom's or my mom's and other family parties to what we eat at home: he calls it the food processor factor.

And I'm totally with Heidi on the importance of liking your stock or broth. I used the recommended bullion and I really do notice a difference - my husband was a soup hater before he met me now he is always shocked that instead of just picking the "food" out of the soup he likes the "juice."

The onion vs 1 cup thing used to bug me but then somewhere I learned how I like to cook and stopped worrying about it. If it says 1 cup I usually use one medium onion. This gets frustrating if I have to shop in local grocery stores though because their onions only come in 1 size: HUGE. I'm talking softball size onions and that cannot be normal. In that case I use a half to a fourth of one but just usually try to go to the market.

It doesn't annoy me, but I am less inclined to attempt recipes without an appealing photo of the finished dish.

haha! I agree with the crock pot complaints and when I encounter crock pot recipe instructions to "brown chicken" or "saute onions in olive oil" I have to admit, I totally ignore them and just dump the stuff in the pot as-is and turn it on. Everything turns out fine.
also, just this week I read a recipe in a magazine (Food and Wine) that began: "saute blah-blah-blah until transluscent in an enameled cast-iron 3 quart Dutch oven..."or some such jazz.
Umm....hey Food and Wine, is it okay if I just use a regular pot, I wonder?!
silly!

Panko bread crumbs. Like I'm really gonna go pay extra money for fancy Japanese bread crumbs that just get sprinkled on top. I also agree with the comments about having a standing mixer! A bunch of my girlfriends were horrified at Christmas when I *gasp* pulled out an electric hand mixer to make the whipped cream. It's perfect for the half dozen times I use it throughout the year and it fits in a little drawer! Plus you can work your arm muscles more if you stir that cookie dough by hand ;)

I despise recipes that assume I own a stand mixer. Actually, any recipe that assumes I have some fairly unusual and expensive bit of kitchen gadgetry. If it's a recipe from Per Se, that's one thing, but if it's the sort of food my grandma might have made, then I want to know how to make it with the sort of tools my grandma might have had.

Love this thread, by the way. Very therapeutic!

I hate recipes that call for only a small fraction of an ingredient -- ie, a tablespoon from a can of coconut milk or a quarter-cup of canned pumpkin. Don't make me buy something just so I can use a tiny bit. What am I gonna do with the rest?

This is a very entertaining thread to read! Thanks for starting it.

I used to detest recipes requiring me any sort of mixer, until my mom bequeathed her old hand mixer to me. I -did- try mixing by hand and it's really difficult. A hand mixer saves a lot of effort.

Many of these pet peeves I can overlook, since I handwrite all the recipes I intend to try on my own little notebook. I can edit what needs to be edited (the order of things, the prep of ingredients, the unit of measure) BEFORE I even try it. But I do agree on the vague sizing of vegetables. Small onion? Even if I could classify onion sizes like that, how should I know if the small onion here in my country is equivalent to a small onion in the US?

Whew. That did make me feel better!

I know you need to have a good idea of how long something should take to cook but I really dislike being given a precise time "simmer for 20 minutes" or "bake for 30 on blah" The amount of times I've messed up recipes by following that religiously even though intuitively I'm thinking "that doesn't sound right" Just tell me what it should look like/taste like in the end and I'll work it out for myself. Or say "Bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown"... or tell me to stick something in it to check if cooked or ANYTHING. This is especially true of recipes involving an oven, I think mine's a bit stronger than the usual... the amount of times my gooey brownies have turned into hard crumbly things because I thought "recipe knows better than me".

I dislike recipes that call for specific brands of processed foods - "add a can of cream of mushroom soup," etc. I'm cooking at home in order to avoid overly processed foods. (I realize these can be useful shortcuts for some people, but for me, including pre-packaged and processed foods in a recipe doesn't mesh with my philosophy of why it's good to cook at home.)

butter. lots and lots of butter.
i can't bring myself to make something when it calls for say 1 cup of butter. that's 16 tablespoons, and if the recipe yields say 20 cookies, that's almost a tablespoon of butter in every cookie! substituting veggie oil for some of that might help, but it changes the texture and consistency.
i can feel my arteries clogging just thinking about it.

Just a note to all those protesting kings measurements.. Many of us who were born and raised in the US NEED those king's measurements. I'm nearly 39 years old, and while I did learn metrics in high school, they still do not come easily, and NONE of my cooking implements come in metric measurements.

That said, perhaps cookbook authors could list 'both' measurements, as there are many converters out there that are equal to the task, and adding (60 grams) or (1/4 cup) to an ingredients list wouldn't be excessive.

That said, one of my major pet peeves is recipes that over-explain the instructions. I've been cooking since I was about 6, and really don't need to be told to "stir the macaroni so it doesn't stick together."

The biggest one I've run into lately is recipes that call to heat the oil until "shimmering". What on earth does that mean? Oil is shimmery right out of the bottle. It doesn't appear to get more "shimmering" to me as it's heated.

I had never seen it until recently and in the past month I've seen it in at least 5 different recipes. Drives me crazy. It's like saying wash the vegetables until they're wet..crazy talk.

I agree that I need every recipe to list the nutritional content. That is something that I cannot always tell just by reading the recipe. And, I'm surprised that so many people do not like to have the measurements for vegetables! I would much rather see "1/2 cup" of onions or whatever than just "a small onion". I often add extra vegetables, anyway, but I like to have an idea of how much to start with and go from there. My biggest problem would have to be recipes that call for some type of convenience food, and don't give an alternative! Like a recipe I read recently called for "2 boxes of boil-in-the-bag rice". I don't use that kind, but it doesn't say how much of regular cooked rice I would substitute!! I guess I am a little OCD when it comes to cooking, because I always like to read through a recipe several times before I decide if it is something that I (and the rest of my family) would like, and if it is worth my time and effort.

Anything that contains vegetable shortening will not be made by me. Also, I question any baked good that calls for both baking powder AND baking soda. How could it possibly need both?
I also loathe recipes that call for canned beans without any regard to the fact that I will always be purchasing dried beans and trying to figure out the conversion. Speaking of cans, I agree with what piccola said. Don't make me open a can if I'll need to figure out another way to use most of its contents.

i don't like it when recipes call for 3 things plus a can of soup. that's dressing up your soup, that's not a recipe. other than condiments, i don't want already-prepared, store-bought foods in my recipes! i'm an ingredients purist, i guess.

A million ingredients, all of them required.

I can handle a long list if some of them are optional, but I still generally avoid recipes with more than 10 ingredients (the fewer the better).

@Waiting for Gateau, I couldn't agree more. My biggest pet peeve is all the whining people do about the recipes, not the way it is written or the ingredients or the sizes of things or the equipment. If a recipe doesn't work for you, figure out a work around! No one recipe writer can satisfy everyone's piddly little peeves. I can't believe people get ticked off because they don't have a food processor and a recipe says to use one. Accept that you are just ridiculous for not investing in one of the most versatile, functional, useful kitchen products and find a way to get around it. People wouldn't write recipes that instruct you to use a food processor so often if it didn't work so darn good!

I also think a lot of people are complaining about things which serve a purpose, and are a matter of preference. For instance, some recipes talk about how the food should look as a way of helping people know they have the right consistency. For a lot of foods, there is variation based on type of ingredient. With flour, this is especially true.

The only thing that bothers me is when recipes call for pre-packaged things like "pudding mix", "canned soup", or "cake mix". My feeling is that a recipe doesn't include something that was created to avoid following a recipe. I can understand that some people need shortcuts, and don't object to recipes that include these items as long as the title is descriptive like "lemon pudding mix cake" or "canned soup casserole". Many times I've seen something on a food picture site and then clicked to the "recipe" to find that it includes prepared mixes which I have no ability to buy.

'Stick of butter' - I have to look up the weight for this EVERY TIME. Plus giving cup measurements for things which don't fit into cups. And not saying which type of sugar/flour is required.

And I dislike US recipes which call for 'one box of yellow cake mix'! Um, no way. I want to know how to make it properly, but they don't tell you that.

Word, @Waiting for Gateau! I was eager to hear peoples' responses, but sheesh! There seems to be very little kitchen intuition going on here and people blaming recipe authors for their own lack of improvisational skills.

If you only use a little bit of the canned pumpkin, have pumpkin pancakes or something the next day. It's fun to figure out what to do with leftover ingredients! If you don't have a stand mixer, mix stuff by hand. It'll be fine, I promise. The generic store-brand butter I buy has tablespoons, cups and ounces written on the label - EVERYONE WINS.

I suddenly have more sympathy for cookbook authors.

1 tsp of parsley. really? you want me to go out and buy parsley so i can use 1 tsp for this and let the rest go gross in my fridge? no thanks.

Also, I hate recipes that don't tell you important things till the end. "now simmer for 2 hours" 2 hours?? but I'm hungry now! Or, bread recipes that say let it rest for 2 hours. like i'm going to start making something in the middle of the afternoon and then come back to it later? i work. i get home at 6. if it has to rest for 2 hours, it's not happening. I especially hate when these kinds of recipes claim to be so convenient and easy!

I hate when the recipe calls for 1 cup of something that comes out of a can. 1 cup of canned beans? No, if i'm opening a can of beans, i'm dumping in the whole thing. it can't possibly make that much difference.

I HATE when the instruction to butter/grease a pan is hidden in the middle of the instructions. Put it at the beginning!

I can't believe how much whining this post generated. Most of what people are complaining about I learned in 6th grade Home Ec - Read the recipe through before you start.
And as for the ingredients and tools, I dont like lamb, so I skip lamb recipes. I dont have a mezzaluna, so I use a knife. When my stand mixer was dying, I didn't make meringue. How hard is that? I was expecting to see more things along the line of recipes that leave out important details or neglect to mention that something that is even 5 minutes overcooked will resemble a paving stone. That is the stuff I want to know upfront.

I agree with your second point (the "preferably organic" thing). I personally hate that most recipes list the number of servings or the prepared quantity at the VERY END of the recipe. This is info I need as I'm reading through the recipe and going through the steps in my mind to figure out if it's a good recipe I want to try. This is especially crucial when I'm looking for a healthier recipe: if the cupcake recipe makes 18, 1 1/2 cups of sugar is fine; but if it only makes 12, that's too much. And of course, I want every recipe to have weight and not just volume measures, especially for baked good. It's not just more accurate, it makes for quicker measuring!

I agree with @Waiting for Gateau. This thread sounds like my students complaining that the assignments are not adapted to their individual needs/schedules, etc. Read the recipe, make your plan and move forward. It's a guide when it comes to most cooking and improvisation and adaptation make it your own.

@Waiting for Gateau Oh please, get off your high horse. I took 3 years of cooking classes in high school and have been cooking on my own for 6 years since. "Shimmering" oil was never addressed in those classes and has never been addressed in any of the 20+ cookbooks I own.

Rather then chastising people and assuming they don't know how to cook perhaps we should all just realize that everyone has personal preferences when it comes to cooking, and that it's impossible for anyone to definitively know all there is to know about cooking whether they've been cooking for 3 months or 20 years. It looks like regardless of what those writing recipes do, someone is going to be irritated. Such is life.

Tips for everyone though, read the recipe all the way through first if you're upset by the ingredients or it demands a piece of equipment you don't have, either get creative or don't make that food!

Wow! Talk about tension in the room.

I'm not really peeved. I understand that different places have different cultures, different metric systems.

I only wish that when recipes ask for a 100 grams or 100 ml of an item, they would also include its equivalent in cup form or something. (Well, yes, I can google them, or use a calculator, but if you're using a cookbook... nuff said.)

@Waiting for Gateau, reddylee, and others: This post asked for what irritates people when looking at recipes, of course people are going to complain about mundane things - it was asked for. It doesn't mean the people who posted have no clue how to cook, a lot of complaints, such as the food processor/stand mixer ones, are about authors assuming arrogantly that everyone who cooks has one, and that the use of a machine is vital to turning out the recipe.

As far as the small/large/1/2 cup of veg thing or "shimmering oil" or whatnot complaints, I'm pretty sure that most of us are able get around it and prepare the recipe without problem. In my case, and I would presume others, it is just a mere annoyance when I look at a recipe to see something so relative or vague be a line item.

As said above, cooking is not rocket science or brain surgery. I'm not so stupid that I think that I have to follow a recipe to a tee to turn out and am perfectly capable of figuring out that I want to use x amount of fat, onion, garlic, or whatever ingredient to suit my taste, regardless of how a recipe is written. I certainly don't need a remedial cooking class because I find some recipes written poorly.

Wow. I've only made it through half the comments, but this has already been incredibly useful. Good job AT :) I will definitely keep some of this feedback in mind when writing my own recipes.

The difficult part about writing a recipe, is one can't really please everyone. Knowledge bases, techniques, finances vary greatly between cooks. I am a home cook with no culinary education and I a write my recipes based on my own experiences. I feel that if I can do it, other home cooks can! I will admit that most of my baked goods do use a stand mixer. I just don't have the time or funds to make the recipe several times (stand mixer, hand mixer and by hand) to share results and different methodology. My best advice for a home cook - read the recipe start to finish before you even go shopping for ingredients :)

Now on to my gripe. I just encountered this last week. A Martha recipe called for 3 tablespoons and 2 teaspoons of butter. Seriously... 2 teaspoon of butter? I just used 4 tablespoons.

Once again, great post. Thanks!
Brandon
Kitchen Konfidence

I'm surprised at all the complaints about measuring systems. If I buy a cookbook from another country, or use a recipe from the internet, I don't expect that author to look up the equivalent for our silly measuring system that no one else in the world uses. All of my measuring cups and spoons have the metric equivalent printed right on them anyway (and no, I did not buy them at a special store.) If you don't want to do the math, make something else.

Which goes for a lot of other things too. If you want everything made totally from scratch, find recipes you like and use them. If you don't want more than 5 ingredients, find recipes with a few ingredients. You can't have it both ways in every recipe.

I think good recipes list steps and ingredients in logical order and group them if there are multiple parts to a dish (meat and sauce or cake and frosting.) I like it when the author explains why they use an unusual ingredient or technique or piece of equipment so I can figure out an appropriate substitute if necessary.

From a printed book standpoint I prefer that the ingredients and instructions are printed on one page or at least on facing pages so flipping pages with dirty hands is not required. I also like enough blank space on the page to write my own notes, such as adjustments for high altitude baking or ingredient substitutions.

I am really turned off by recipes that call for several bowls. I'm always trying to figure out ways to stream line the directions to make it more friendly to everyday. Oh, and I also get annoyed with ingredients like "large onion" without giving volume or weights as a guide.

Can't believe I didn't think of this before:

Incomplete recipes! I despise when a step is left out or a random ingredient isn't dealt with. I just dismissed an amazing-looking recipe because it included peas in the ingredients, but it didn't tell when to add them, how to prepare them...nothing. So frustrating.

One of the things that I do esp for things like when you don't have buttermilk and things is to make a list of these shortcuts and tape them to the inside of my kitchen cabinets. This also works for conversions and such. For the recipe on two pages or in books in general, I xerox the recipe and tape it to the cabinet above where I'm working. That way I don't get goo on it as I will borrow books from others esp the library. I use blue painters tape and it works. I then store the recipes later and hang them back up when I cook again. For recipes that I use alot like homemade pizza crust and chocolate chip cookies, those hung up 24/7!

As for recipe pet peeves I need a picture of the finished product...seriously. Irks me with knitting patterns and the like too.

People: READ THE RECIPE BEFORE MAKING IT! This would solve a lot of your problems, whether it's missing/hard-to-find ingredients, special equipment, or just the process as a whole.

My mother's "basic" cookbook lists part of the recipe on page 25 and then part of the recipe on page 113 and then you have to return to page 25 to complete it. I cannot tell you how many errors I made as a beginning or tired cook using that "Agony of Cooking" cookbook. The current editions of that cookbook have corrected this problem.

Also, no cookbook cautions bakers and pastry makers to be consistent with their flour brand selection. Always use the same brand of flour as each manufacturer has a propriatary mix of winter and spring wheats which determines how much gluten it has and how much water to add. Personally I use only Gold Medal flour because I find it consistent, consistent, consistent. Other brands seem to fluxuate seasonally.

hmmm...

- fancy names for veggies just to make them sound... fancy. ie: courgette. Just why?

- That it's so hard to find a recipe that doesn't require ingredients that no average person would ever just happen to have. Bonus: if it's a small amount of something you can't buy a small amount of.

- But most of all: measurements. I have a scale. I know not everyone has a scale and sometimes they can be expensive (if you buy the expensive ones...). Measuring by weight is just so much easier, faster, and accurate.

Usually I just give in and whip out the cups and teaspoons but when a recipe calls for 1/8th or 1/16th of a teaspoon? What the hell is that? WHY EVEN BOTHER lol

After reading many of these comments, I feel like my biggest pet peeve is the people who are complaining about some of these things.

1) Who cares if it tells you how many cups of onions to use (or measurements for any other ingredient)? If you know that equates to one small onion, then just go buy one small onion. Many people don't know these things, and precise measurements make it easier for the novice to make the recipe well and to learn. If you're an advanced enough cook to be able to adjust amounts or "eyeball" things, then do that. If you know you dislike the flavor of a certain ingredient, go ahead and adjust accordingly. The recipe is only a guide. You don't need to follow it precisely if you don't want to.

2) Same with suggestions for using certain implements. If you don't have that tool, use Google to figure out what you could use instead. Otherwise, it may be helpful to someone who wouldn't otherwise know how to complete the task. (i.e. if it said to "strain" something, it would be immensely helpful if it specified using cheesecloth, otherwise someone might use a colander and get poor results!) And sometimes you really do need certain tools to produce the desired effect. Should recipe writers really ban the suggestion to use a food processor because YOU don't have one? Why is that anyone else's problem but your own?

3) Complaints about using certain ingredients are stupid. If you don't like buttermilk, then don't make recipes that require buttermilk! I agree that listing a particular brand of item is obnoxious (unless it's clear what the item is so you can find an appropriate substitute). But, then again, Google is your friend!

There's no reason to be afraid to switch from imperial to metrics. Everyone acts like they've got to take an ounce and translate it into grams.

That's not how measuring works.

You have a recipe, you have a measuring tool, you use it. I don't suffer when I have to measure everything out with cups (though I kind of do because it's slow and it means I have to wash the cups).

You wouldn't have to suffer when you put the bowl on a scale, tare it, and pour ingredients straight in until the number matches the number on the paper. So difficult, I know.

There's no mental gymnastics about metric-imperial... you just invent that out of fear of things that are different.

@Waiting for Gateau makes a very valid point. Interestingly, the more you rely on recipes the less likely you are to ever become a good cook. And quite frankly, how many truly "original" recipes are there? Most are riffing on something that's already been done, or they are variations of basic foundational concepts. I often wonder if that's why so many of them specify some off-the-wall ingredient...it adds uniqueness to something that really isn't that novel.

For those of you complaining that the recipe is too obvious, and thus, insulting your intelligence - every recipe is written so that the reader has less of a chance of messing up the recipe. With that said, more information you can give, the better.

More visual and verbal cues there are, the better the recipe, so people know what to look out for!

Also, a lot of you need to start reading recipes before you start. A quick scan of the ingredients and steps would save you a lot of headaches later, because you'll know what's going to be expected of you. If you opt to fly by the seat of your pants, well then you need to expect that you may run into the unexpected because you chose not to prepare.

And... if you don't know what certain terms mean (i.e. "shimmering" oil), then perhaps you're either A) making a recipe that is too advanced for your skill set, or B) need to educate yourself on those terms before you get angry at the recipe writer for including them. "Shimmering" oil is an actual sign the the oil is heated properly. You can find videos online (for free) that will show you what this looks like. Learning how to properly heat your oil to the right temperature (and be able to properly gauge this using visual or other cues) will help ensure that your dish is cooked appropriately and tastes the way it should. It's not just some obnoxious term they threw in there solely to piss you off. Again... Google is your friend if you see something you don't understand!

This was a really fun thread to go through at first, but I'm glad I wasn't the only one surprised by the number of people who just sound like they could benefit from reading the through the recipe before actually cooking it. I used to do that a lot, though, and it really can screw things up so I can understand the frustration!

It's not something I normally get angry about, but I always roll my eyes when I read a recipe containing a lot of flowery prose in the middle of the instructions. I've noticed that in a lot of food blogs. That's all well and good in the intro or as a footnote, perhaps, but personally I think it gets in the way when you're actually preparing the dish. Useful tips are great though, as long as they're kept to the point, such as, "be careful not to overknead".

As for recipes giving precise cooking times... if you KNOW that your oven cooks more quickly or slowly than normal, or if you check on the item and see that it's done before the stated cooking time, then use your common sense and trust your gut! The recipe writer didn't use your kitchen to design the recipe, so they can't logically craft the recipe to fit your specific circumstances, AND the circumstances of every other kitchen in the world (which will all be different). The recipe is only a guide. It's your responsibility to know your kitchen's limitations and issues, and adjust accordingly. And if you know your oven, for instance, is off... then get it calibrated!

I take recipes as suggestions (unless it is baking) so I'm pretty flexible, What annoys me:

1. Rest Time, I hate when recipes don't list the Prep/cook/rest times. I'm getting better at figuring it out, but sometimes I skim the recipe before I go to the store, get all the ingredients, then read the step before starting and figure out something has to simmer for two hours.
I just wish there was a consistent way to show the time, most sites show the 'expertise' level.

2. I like when recipes have separate ingredient sections, the sauce ingredients vs everything else. So it does annoy me, they stick it all together on the top, without listing separate uses. I would rather the ingredient list '1 TBSP Flour mixed with 1 TBSP water' versus making it a step. '2 Carrots (cubed)' I don't want to read in the steps (peel and cube carrots). just 'add carrots'
I also don't like when the list '2 carrots', then say 'add cubed carrots'. When did that happen?
I just want recipes to be Simple and Clear.

I know I should read the whole recipe before I do anything, but every night shouldn't be a test, if you can make it clear, why not?

For some reason I just loathe the phrase "to taste." As in, "add salt and pepper to taste."

I know exactly what it means. And I'm sure I've used it in legitimate conversations before. I just haaaaate finding it in recipes. Weird like that, I suppose!

I hate when a recipe calls for a super specialty item (fleur de sel anyone? I live in SEATTLE (very foodie city) and I can't get that here) WITHOUT telling me WHY it's so important or if you can substitute a more common ingredient (i dunno, like SALT).

Others also reminded me that I hate recipes using half or part of a can of something.

Cookbook authors: It'd be great to see a book where at the bottom of the recipe you suggested things to do with the leftover ingredients!

Pretty much all tofu recipes call for a pound of tofu. Tofu comes in 14oz packages! Drives me up the wall!

My big pet peeve is wordy or purple prose in the directions...cough, Delia Smith, cough Nigella Lawson. I find it hellish to slog through even if the recipe yields great results.

I like my recipes direct and to-the-point as opposed to conversational. But that's just my preference.

p.s. - On the other hand, I love when recipes have diagrams/illustrations/pictures! Esp. if they want things cut in certain ways. So convenient!

When baking my Christmas cookies this year, I had to deal with 10 different recipes. Each one used different measures for butter and sugar. I had to prepare these elaborate conversions to figure out how much to buy at the store based on the number of batches of each cookie I planned to make. Are we using cups, teaspoons, tablespoons, ounces, sticks, or something else? For example, this could mean adding up three batches of cookies that call for 3 tablespoons of butter apiece, plus 2 batches of cookies that each require 1/4 cup of butter, plus the two recipes that call for one stick or 1/2 stick of butter, plus the one recipe that calls for 8 ounces of butter.

Then when I arrived at the store, the packaging for these items doesn't match the most straight-forward conversions. I'm trying to figure out how many tablespoons of butter are in each 4-stick package. The bag of sugar weighs 2 lbs and gives me a mL equivalent, but only breaks this down into teaspoons because a serving of sugar is one teaspoon, nevermind that you're buying it in a 2lb bag! I'm left standing there in the aisle trying to figure out how many teaspoons are in a cup, then how many bags of sugar are needed for my recipe!

So my pet peeve is when recipe authors fail to consider that people use recipes to guide their grocery shopping first - its helpful when authors take the time to consider how items are typically packaged and measured at the store.

writing recipes should be incredibly easy: list the ingredients in order of use, if you need to preheat the oven make that the first step, and then proceed with the rest of the directions in either numbered or broken out into paragraph form. when you've finished writing the recipe, re-read to see if it makes sense and if you've included all steps; then give the recipe to someone else to read to be sure.

as others stated above, if it's X quantity, divided, please tell me I need Y quantity and Z quantity reserved.

but also most importantly, you the reader need to read through the entire recipe first, to make sure none of these things are missing. if they are, jot notes on your printed recipe. there's one site (*cough*seriouseats*cough*) that routinely has VERY poorly written recipes - in these cases, don't be afraid to post corrections as you're likely not the only one confused by a missing step or ingredient.

Again with the food processor and the standing mixer and even the hand mixer! I'm a college student! I do want all that stuff eventually, but in the meantime, do I have to miss out on all the culinary fun?

Recipes which depend on sub-recipes elsewhere in the book.

Recipes that list 'juice of 1/2/3 lemon(s)' Sometimes you can get 2 tsps of juice and other times 1/4 cup of juice from a single lemon. Recipes which use a substantial amount of lemon (lime, grapefruit, passionfruit) juice such as lemon butter should detail the specific amount ie fl oz, mls.

Baking recipes in imperial units. It's fine until you need to scale up a recipe. 18 cups of flour? Arrg!

Also on board with recipes that call for less than a can of coconut milk, tomatoes, whatever.

It's kind of hard to choose, but I'll go with the one that has caused me to mess up the most recipes: Not specifying "divided" in the ingredients list. I do not like being in the middle of a recipe and finding that I have to dig my measuring spoons out of the sink. And it's such an easy thing to include!

I agree with the alliteration of the quality of ingredients used. Ina Garten ALWAYS does this. Bless he heart, I love that woman's recipes. But when she says "1/4 cup GOOD lemon curd," I find myself thinking, "What qualifies good lemon curd? Who sells bad lemon curd??"

And don't even get me started on her recipe stories involving "Jeffrey"...

When they say "season to taste" for things that you can't taste until it's done, like quiche. What, am I supposed to be gulping down the raw egg/milk mix to figure out if it needs more salt?

I was about to write the exact thing as the commentor above me. I saw "Salt to taste" in a recipe with raw chicken.

@liefie - you can't find fleur de sel in Seattle?? granted, its not of utmost importance and can be replaced, but even Williams Sonoma carries that...

@Meg1719 - so funny about Ina & Jeffrey. I will occasionally put on her show if I'm putzing around, but "I'm making this for Jeffrey..." and so on gets really nauseating. from the looks of it, you made it for yourself, stop blaming him ;)

ditto ditto ditto on stand mixers

My BIGGEST pet peeve though is time-intensive methods that are unnecessary. If I'm making a pastry crust, you can bet I'll be cutting cold butter into flour and using ice water. If I am making pancakes, I am going to melt the damn butter in the microwave and dump it in. There is a good reason to use cold cold buttter and cold cold water (and work fast) on a pastry crust. But pancake batter? You're being ridiculous. You're child wants pancakes. Melt the butter. That kind of slow-food madness makes me crazy.

this isn't a pet peeve, but i bought the cookbook "flour" and i made the snickerdoodle recipe. it was the first time i had ever seen someone list the mixing instructions for fluffing the butter and sugar separately for a stand mixer than a hand mixer. i use a hand mixer, and following the instructions showed me that i had been under-fluffing the butter and sugar. it was so helpful!

I'm with Antipatharia, I love Ina Garten on so many levels, but I can't stand the comment "good vanilla." Like I'm going to buy BAD vanilla! Seriously. She's campy, and that's kinda why I like her.

I can't believe I'm the first to bring this up, but my major sticking point with cookbooks is: the index.

I have some cookbooks where the recipes are indexed only by recipe name, not by ingredient... and I have X ingredient and want to make something with it, what recipes use X?

My other minor peeve is when recipes don't recommend what to eat with it, particularly what vegetables... fine, you have a delicious recipe for fish or chicken or whatever but if they said, this pairs nicely with some sautéed greens or I like to eat this with a salad to start... I like cooking but menu planning is sometimes challenging.

As much as I LOVE Ina Garten, I hate that she calls for "good" vanilla extract, or "good" chicken broth. What exactly does that mean? P.S- I don't always have the money or resources to go hunt for the best quality vanilla.

I appreciate recipes that state at several points what the consistency or color or texture of the food should be. Tell the cook how the dough should feel. Or what color range the cookies can be when they come out of the oven. I'm an advanced enough cook that I can usually figure this sort of thing out on the fly, but life would be easier if I got the benefit of the recipe developer's experience.

Another pet peeve is ethnic cookbooks that make substitutions for authentic ingredients for the "American kitchen" and don't tell you they did it. This was more of a problem before the Internet. I have very few pre-1990 ethnic cookbooks for this reason.

I just hate when recipes don't tell you WHY to do some seemingly unimportant task. If it's actually imperative to blanch each vegetable seperately, tell me WHY or else I'll assume you're just trying to make me wash more dishes.

I actually ran into this last night while making dinner - I really hate it when a recipe throws an additional ingredient into the instructions. Usually, it's something easy peasy like "1/2 cup water" or "pinch of salt" but there's no reason for it to not be in the actual list of ingredients.

And for the longest time, Alton Brown's insistence on using weights for baked goods was especially obnoxious (I love the guy, but come on!) but then my darling dear got me a kitchen scale for my birthday because "Alton Brown has one and I figured you should, too".