When Not Following Directions Turns Out Awesome. And Delicious.

I love cooking. But I suck at following recipes.

Tonight I made a Blueberry, Beet and Basil Summer Salad from Better Homes and Garden. This is what theirs looked like.

This is what mine looked like.

I used:
– canned red beets, not fresh yellow beets
– lemon juice, no lemon
– no basil (next time!)
– fennel seed instead of fresh fennel – in dressing ( next time I'll skip the fennel all together)
– no onion
– plain yogurt not greek yogurt  
– added dried thyme to dressing
Blueberries, arugula, honey, crushed red pepper and oil as directed.
And I measured nothing.

I will make this salad again, even though I ignored most of their directions. But I love when a recipe can serve as inspiration, rather than instruction. That's why I prefer cooking to baking, in baking, if you get it wrong, you've messed up chemistry.* But in cooking you adjust, and taste, and use what you have, substitute and create. 

I bet if you studied the preference of baking vs. cooking, it would be a right vs. left brain thing.....**
 
*Though tonight I did EVERYTHING wrong in this cookie recipe and they turned out amazing. I will never be able to duplicate this. This was my "inspiration".
**Somebody do this.