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Cooking without recipes can feel a little scary at first, so let's approach this like an adventure!

1. Start with the Ingredients: What are you craving right now? Go to the farmer's market and do one full tour without buying anything. Then go back and pick up fruits and vegetables that sound good to you.

2. Decide on Your Dish: Many of these seasonal ingredients need very little help to taste amazing. How can you showcase them and enjoy them to their fullest? Does a hot dish or a cool one sound good to you right now? What else do you have in your pantry that you can add?

If you're feeling nervous, think about cooking a dish that you're familiar with so you can be confident in how it should taste and the basic method for making it.

3. Taste as You Go: As you're cooking, take little bites at every stage. Does it taste good to you? What other seasonings could you add to get more flavor? Does it need anything else? Use what's in your kitchen and let it inspire the flavors in your dish.

4. Enjoy!: Maybe it's not perfect, maybe it's not exactly what you expected, but it's yours! (And as my fiance always says whenever I stress about a new dish, "We can always order take out.")

Here are a few resources from our archives that might help!
• Understanding Flavor
• Salting to Taste
• Brighten Dishes with Lemon Juice
• How to Deglaze a Pan
• How to Sear Meat

And inspiration for flavors and combinations of flavors:
• French Ingredients and Flavors
• Italian Ingredients and Flavors
• Latin American Ingredients and Flavors
• Indian Ingredients and Flavors
• Asian Ingredients and Flavors
• Round-Up of Regional United States Ingredients and Flavors

Do you have any tips, advice, or encouragement on how to cook without recipes?

Related: Weekend Project: Make One New Recipe

(Image: Flickr member utnapistim licensed under Creative Commons)