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I learned to stray from recipes after watching my mother and grandmother cook. Both woman cooked via memory and had an incredible sense of how mush seasoning to add or how much fresh herbs to use.

In my view, and this may be wrong, a good cook / chef has an intuition about flavor and proportion that's really hard to learn.

However, on the baking front, I'd day it's pretty critical to follow a recipe.

Vince from http://www.scordo.com

It depends on the recipe. If it's something that is clearly accommodating (most savory dishes), then I'm happy to play around with the recipe from the get go. For things a bit less forgiving - baked goods, especially - I'm more likely to strictly follow the recipe the first time out.

There's a couple things I do every time. I'm way too sensitive to the tastes of sugar and salt, so I automatically cut those in half on all dishes. The opposite goes for spice, which I generally double (or leave in seeds if it's calling for a seedless pepper).

Other than that, I'll usually follow the first time, though if the boy gets into the kitchen, he doesn't even bother to read the recipe. Of course, he's also a much more experienced cook than me, and gets away with it better.

I cannot follow a recipe to save my soul! Everytime I try to follow a recipe I mess it up by forgetting something or misreading an amount. I never follow a recipe exactly and I've never regretted not following the recipe.

For baking, I absolutely follow the recipe.

For other things, I will try to follow the recipe the first time, and then tweak the second time.

I usually substitute or add things. I've gotten used to changing recipes, I think, because I'm a vegan. Actually, I do it with recipes that are already vegan too. Sometimes I just think, "Some orange zest would really be good with this." or something like that. It only occassionally doesn't turn out how I expect. But I eat it anyway unless it's inedible- I can't waste food.

I used to follow recipes closely, and I imagine it taught me about proportion and technique, but I hardly do that now. I use recipes mostly for flavor combinations, but I always make adjustments based upon foods in my kitchen that need to be used, ingredients I particularly like, etc.

But as others have said, baking is a completely different story. Since I prefer to improvise, I'm trying to teach my husband to take over pastry duties.

For baking, I follow the recipe each and every time. Except with spices, which I do to taste.

For everything else, I tweak as I go since cooking is generally pretty forgiving.

I rarely follow a recipe for anything. But I read a lot of recipes before I try to cook anything so that I have a pretty good idea of what variations are usual.

As far as baking, bread is pretty forgiving if you're not too specific about what you want the bread to come out like. You can eyeball pie crust, and after you've made cookies a few times, you don't really need a recipe for them either. Cakes I would probably follow one for if I ever made cake, which I don't.

I use recipes as a guideline. This is probably why I'm such a bad baker, but then again, I don't care much because I don't like to bake.

I got a book called The Flavor Bible which is great help if you really want to go off the beaten path and create a recipe. It lists foods, sort of like a dictionary, and then lists foods that pair well with them. I also use this to figure out what I want to cook together so my dishes compliment one another. I reccomend it to people who want to cook their own recipes but have a hard time starting.

I try to follow recipes, but I always add more garlic than is called for... and it always tastes delicious! :)

I rarely use recipes to cook, only to bake. And everytime I cook for friends without a recipe, it never fails: they come to me a few days later saying "what was in that stuffing!" or "how do you do that awesome lemon caesar dressing?"

And then I tell them, I'm not too sure, but maybe it'll come back to me next time (it usually doesn't)...

Only for baking and then pretty much just the first time I try the recipe. After that it's fair game.

I used to follow recipes religiously the first time, just so I could set a basis for comparison. Now that I've been cooking nightly dinners for eight years, though, I've developed the confidence to stray and almost always do.

Baking is another story. I do it less often and am thus less likely to experiment.

I don't stray when it comes to baking unless I've made it enough to know what will happen. For example, I've made Pumpkin Rolls enough (20 years now) to know what will happen if I change the spices or flavors in it. Otherwise, I won't mess with a baking recipe. There's just too much chemistry science involved in even minor changes (I ended up with ROCKS instead of cookies once)!

As for non-baking recipes, I mess around with them all the time. I've learned what kind of substitutions work, and which ones will drastically change the flavors.

But I always always take notes about what I did so I can either recreate or not make the same mistake twice. :)

I almost never follow a recipe. I'll often look at multiple recipe/sources to get an idea of how it is usually done, and then I will refine it to what I have on hand and what I'm looking to achieve.

And 99% of the time, it works out great. Every so often, there's a fail, but they're far and few between.

Del
www.delementals.com

I am a pantry cowgirl - take what I've got in the kitchen, what I know in my head, and combine. I barely every follow recipes, which is why I think I'm such a fan of Mark Bittman. I've gotten a little bit better about writing down what I make, though, since I've started photographing and blogging about it.

I have to thank The Kitchn for making my browned leek kugel cups the most popular recipe so far!
http://amymlitt.wordpress.com/2008/12/24/sauteed-leek-kugel-cups/

I've discovered that I am physically incapable of following a recipe. Which turns out fine when make savory meals, but means that most baking projects end up in disaster.

I do, though, find lots of recipes online add them to my springpad meal planner, then modify them on the fly. I need to get better at going back & making notes about how I like to modify recipes - it will help when I send them to friends.

I like to try to follow recipes sometimes because I consider that a private lesson about another cook's flavor profile and technique. This works especially well because I make at least two or three new recipes every week. Even with standards, I actually learn a lot when one recipe writer varies from another in a particular technique, spice, or ingredient amount. I've been able to introduce a lot of new things to my cooking as opposed to following the same old comfortable patterns. And at the same time, I'm comfortable taking creative and educated freedom, using substitutions and different techniques to get to where I want to go.

I try to follow recipes to the tee the first time, although it takes real effort! I then start tweaking. Sometimes I dont have the ingredient and have to sub, or I think that something similar will do or even be better, or it seems dull and I'll pep it up with something like smoked paprika or sundried tomatoes.

Generally, I try to stay with the recipe when baking, although add ins like choc chips, nuts and fruit are a free for all!!

For non baking recipes what I usually do is look them up on the internet and read several of them to get the basic idea of them. Then I take the ideas and use the ones I like. Usually I follow one for the basic prooprtions, but sustituting different vegetables, seasonings, etc, that sound good or that I have on hand.

One substitution that I make often is using celery instead of onions. I can't stand them, and celery is usually a good substitute. It adds a similar bit of crunch, and in things like burgers and meatloaf it keeps them moist in the same way.