How often do you cook something you have never cooked before?

Not often when I’m alone. I tend to do that more when I’m cooking for others.

Not as often as a used to. I’ve developed a fairly standard “bag of tricks” in cooking for guests.

If it’s something I haven’t made before, I’ll make it on a trial basis before risking it on guests. If the recipe comes from a standard source that I trust (James Beard, Joyce Chen, Joy of Cooking, etc), I’m confident that it will work if I follow the directions exactly (just like college chem lab). I only get nervous if there is some new technique involved that I’ve never used before.

At least a couple of times a month. Variety is the spice of life.

also new meals give me an excuse to try new wines

I do it quite often like once a week. I am not the best cook, but I like to use everything I have in the fridge (as long as it hasn’t expired) before I go to the store.

Spices are the variety of life, and I cook something new at least once or twice a month.

i had a parsnip experiment that was fun.

Let your mind travel back in time to a place when you were completely innocent of cooking techniques. Allow yourself to remember the courage and excitement of those youthful days
so long ago. Relax. Enjoy the experience of experimenting with this new world called “cooking”. Recall the delight of discovery, and of the pleasure on your loved ones’ faces when you asked them to “taste this”. Yes. Yes.
When you’re ready, let your attention come back to this room. That’s right. Now take that good feeling from the past with you into the kitchen. That’s right. Look around you. Do you see apples? Onions? A bag of flour? A spice rack? I think you know what to do now.

@jazmina88 Parsnip?

I have run out of inspiration sadly, but always want to try new things. The range I cook is slightly wide, except it usually repeats now since I just cook what I remember I like eating. Sometimes I create a (disgusting) risotto that is just a miss-mash of various ingredients. I end up eating it out of pure hunger rather than taste I find.

Although its exam season atm, so I don’t really focus on cooking, I hope to at least try one new recipe each time I go shopping. Even if its just to try a new ingredient.

Oo now that I recall, the last time I cooked something new was last week when I bought a stir fry and some szechuan sauce. Twas very nice, and had one serving with home made stir fried rice, and one with jacket potato.

I almost never make the same thing twice. I substitute the different ingredients so much with the recipes I use, it would be impossible to remember what I did.

Funny you should ask this, because I almost never cook… but I just did cook something new the other night. I suck at cooking, so I usually follow recipes to the letter. It’s very rare that I just ‘throw something together’, but stew beef was on sale at the store, so I picked some up. I also bought a bag of frozen vegetables that had good stuff in it: squash, pea pods, red peppers, etc. It was called a ‘Sicilian Mix”, but had no sauce or seasonings in it.

I just seared and mostly cooked the beef in a cast iron skillet with salt, pepper, and garlic powder, then added chopped onions and mushrooms. Meanwhile, I cooked up a big pot of rice. When the beef mixture was just about done, I threw in the frozen veggies and some soy sauce, covered the pot and cooked till the veggies were done. Served over the rice with more soy sauce. It was surprisingly good! A proud moment for me. :)

I also recently cooked a dish my mother used to make when I was a kid, green rice. I substituted real (good) cheese for the Velveeta (ick). It was delicious!

I leave the experimenting to my partner who is a trained chef. There are a few things I do well but only a few, and I tend to stick to those.

I try to make something new at least once a week, or at least a strong variation on something that I have tried in the past.