NOTES ON MY RECIPES WITH SOME TIPS AND TRICKS
MEASUREMENTS
I remember being really impressed with a French friend who made pancakes by eye, "au flair" as she said. Now I always need to remind myself of the measurements for pancakes, but generally, as an experienced cook, I don't always worry about exact measurements: I cook using knobs and slugs, dashes and splashes. A knob of butter for me might be anywhere between 20g and 50g. However, you cannot dish up recipes with that level of inaccuracy so I test them and measure it all out. If you are an experienced cook and trust your knobs, follow your intuition. (My average knob works out to be around 30g).
TESTING
I have a tester: my husband, Tom. Tom, whilst not an experienced cook can make some dishes amazingly well: lasagne, chilli, moussaka, a roast chicken dinner (he roasts the chicken and potatoes, but needs me to cook the veg). Annoyingly for him, I only allow moussaka when aubergines are in season, but boy it is worth the wait. As he is someone who needs to follow instructions, and needs them to make sense, without the 'intuitive' cook's spidey sense, he is a good tester. He won't test everything however, and I have devised a labelling system to indicate the levels of TT (Tom Testing)
TBT - Tested by Tom
PTBT - Partially tested by Tom. I will clarify which elements have been TBT and which I have done. (Eg: Nettle risotto: there would be no way I could get him to process nettles, so I did that, but he tested the risotto, as he'd never made a risotto before).
TCBA - Tom Can't Be Arsed - there will be some things, usually fiddly, and he won't do it.
TDFT - Too Difficult for Tom.