Have you ever found a great new recipe almost by accident?

I needed a potato salad recipe a few years ago and my friends husband gave me his. Other than it needs more salt than called for, I fix it all the time and most people like it and want the recipe. :-)

I’ve been looking for dishes that fit the ingredients on hand, but so far, none have been good enough to remember. They are adequate, but nothing to tell fluther about.

Yeah, I looked at what I had in my kitchen and made something: Penne, frozen mixed vegetables, and alfredo sauce mixed together.

Yes, I usually go here with ingredients I have on hand and come up with some very good ideas.

I’ve been making sorbets lately and was attempting to make a lemon mint sorbet with my housemate last week. She was in charge of picking the mint from our garden and getting it chopped in the blender for me to add to the icy mix but somehow ended up getting me basil instead – but the results were wonderful and I think I’m going to keep making it with basil from now on.

I often look for recipes online. Sometimes I combine 2 or 3 to make what suits my taste. If it comes out good I write it down. One time I found the best recipe for Hungarian Goulash on the circular from the grocery store. It was someone’s grandma’s recipe and it came out amazing. Then I discovered that I had accidentally thrown out the circular without writing it down! I remembered most of it but I haven’t tried it yet to see if it comes out as good the second time around.
Tonight I was looking for ideas for Chicken and Zucchini. Someone on Fluther was looking for Carrot recipes. I suggested Roasted Carrots and I made those tonight and they were really good. From my search I made Zucchini Fritters from Martha Stewart’s recipe. The chicken I kept basic and simple.

Yes! When I was visiting the SO and his parents were there, we were sitting around reading a newspaper, and I ran across a recipe that sounded delicious. While I didn’t cook at the time, I was willing to give it a shot with the help of the SO. So, we made Magnificent Moroccan Chicken. It turned out to be one of the best meals I have ever had.

A favorite dish in our family was first made by my mom, who somehow combined recipes on adjacent pages of a cookbook. We called it adobo because that was the name of one of the recipes but it also had spinach from the other recipe. We loved it. When I was grown and learned what adobo was supposed to be, I liked it too, but it wasn’t my mom’s adobo.

@Pied_Pfeffer That looks delicious. I copied the recipe.

I love talking to people at the grocery store, especially older folks. I’ve found out how to make pot pies, make pie crusts, bundt cakes, potato salad, macaroni and cheese and all sorts of things. The produce section is best. I’ll just walk up to people and say, “What do you do with your Brussels sprouts? I’ve been trying to find a good way to prepare them.” And people will tell you! The other thing that I do is walk up to people, take a peek in their cart and ask, “What’s good today?” And people are more than happy to tell you what they bought and how they’re going to prepare it. My other opening line is, “Wow that such and such looks great, are you having a barbecue/party? People will just jump in and start telling you how they prepare their grill and what kind of marinade they put on their shrimp and that their daughter is getting married and she makes the best blueberry pie in town etc. etc. etc.

This only backfired on me once. I was talking to a considerably older gentleman in line about what he was going to barbecue. This all happened when we were in line. Just yakking back and forth about cooking. After he paid, he stood at the end of the register and said, “Can I get your phone number, are you married?” I said that I was and then he got kind of angry and said, “Well then why were you talking to me then!?” Huh? We were only talking about baked beans and soda pop for goodness sake.

@Kardamom Baked beans and soda pop????? And it’s not even the first date???? My, my. You are precocious, aren’t you? ;-)

@wundayatta He must have been turned on by my raggedy painters pants, flip flops and hair that was rolled up into a ball on top of my head : – )

@Kardamom painters pants and flip flops? Be still, my beating heart!