General Cooking Philosophy

So my general cooking philosophy goes as follows:

Taste everything you make and adjust accordingly; a good cook is defined by their ability to adapt and create when there is no recipe before them.

In other words what I’m saying is I don’t do exact measurements.  I’ll tell you how much liquid or how many onions to put into a dish but I won’t tell you two tablespoons of cumin or whatever.  The purpose of cooking in my mind isn’t so much recreating exactly what the recipe says but in fact learning why certain flavors interact with one another and how those interactions work, so as a result my only rule I have when I cook is that I always taste whatever I’m making and I taste it often to decide if it needs something or not.

You may find this frustrating if you’re trying to follow along with my recipes when I share them, but bear with me.  I’m willing to bet that you’ll find yourself becoming a better and better cook if you stop worrying too much about whether or not you actually put in two tablespoons of paprika versus one and actually start tasting the food you’re making.