Bake melon? No, I would think it would dissolve because of the high water content.

I do grill cantalope & honeydew melons over a hot fire just long enough to get nice grill marks. That's good.

I also dehydrate melons by first blending them into a slush & the pouring the mixture on a solid dehydrator tray...the end result is a fruit roll-up...very good...kids love 'em.

Good luck with that fruit crisp!

/tricia

I am a recipe futzer! I never met a recipe I didn't mess with, bwa-ha! Tell us how the melon turns out.

The first time I make a recipe, I always follow the directions and use the correct ingredients. After that, I can tweak it to suit myself and family.

Hope your baked melon comes out!

Smiles,
Sooz

I adjust all the time, often from the word "go". But I've been cooking and paying attention long enough to have a fair idea of what will work. I think your melon crisp will be.............different.

I'm like Gina. Maybe more so. If I need a recipe, I invariably look at several recipes, until I get the gist of it. Then I go ahead and cook without following any particular one.

I do very little baking, mind you. When I do bake, I usually follow a recipe and measure the ingredients. But not always.

Jim

I think I have a birth defect in that I'm unable to follow a recipe. Not because I can't read one, or understand the terminology, but because I just can't help wondering, "what if I did this....or that...".

I try very hard not to alter canning recipes because of safety concerns, restricting my "play" to seasonings and other things I'm sure are safe to alter.

I even alter my own recipes. I alter them because ingredients vary in flavor, freshness and availability, and because I'm often inspired to try something just a little different.

As for your melon crisp...I think the result might depend on the ripeness of your melon. If it was a bit unripe, the flesh crisp, it might work. But if it was really ripe, you may end up with a watery crisp. If so, you might save it for eating by toasting some granola and mixing it in before serving.

It turned out fine...mind you I had other fruits mixed in the crisp so it just wasn't melon....but you could taste the melon (at least we thought so). Mission accomplished..melon used, and eatable crisp. Thanks for your replies.

There you go!! Another successful experiment!

Let's hear it for the daredevils!!

Well, now that must have been an interesting crisp, LOL. I have noted that I have recipes for canteloupe quick bread and canteloupe jam and I'd have never thought of either of those uses for melon either.

I'm another person who usually plays with recipes. I use whatever I have on hand, swapping main ingredients and seasonings alike, depending on what suits me and is available, not prohibitively expensive and would seem to mesh with cooking time and other ingredients. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, LOL.

Annie

Me too, I tweak as I need to for dietary restrictions or ingredients on hand.

Needs must! There was recently a recipe for baked pork chops that called for a smear of Mayonnaise to hold the crumbs on. Alas... I was out of Mayo and so used Yogurt instead. Great! baked pork chops.

Some of my best recipes have happened because of substitutions.

I canÂt remember the last time I followed a recipe to the letter. When trying something new, I look at several variations; take the most appealing parts as inspiration for a new creation. My cupboard, freezer and refrigerator are my palette. I use my hands for dry measuring, eye ball liquids i.e. a splash here and a pour there. I let my nose and tongue be my guides, smelling and tasting my way through the process. IÂve had some spectacular successes and some miserable failures but a heck of a lot of fun with each exploration.

I never met a recipe I wouldn't change at least a little!

Dietary restrictions, pantry malfunctions, mood, preferences, and that old standby excuse: oops!

Great thread, and I also never met a recipe I didn't want to tweak or change to my taste or to what is available in my pantry.

I like to go to Allrecipes.com and look at their "Daily Recipes". It also has a great search feature where you can list what ingredients you have and it will find recipes that call for them, or if you're looking for a recipe in particular you can search for that, too. There must be millions of recipes on that site.

But where I was actually going with this is that the people who review the recipes are ALWAYS tweaking, for various reasons! It's a hoot sometimes reading the reviews because if it is a dismal failure they say that. You can tell at a glance if a recipe is good because it shows how many stars it has been given and how many people have written reviews.

I adjust. Reasons:
To make the recipe fit what I have on hand.
To make the recipe suitable for the vegetarians in the house.
To make the recipe kosher.
Just because a variation sounds good to me.

And sometimes, like moosemac, I'll read a bunch of recipes and then make something that takes the features I like from the bunch.

Glad to hear that the melon worked out in the crisp.

Here is what I think: We recipe adjusters are "artists." I am an artist. Most of my kids are pretty good cooks; two are scientists in real life and will not make something without the recipe, and they follow it EXACTLY! They use the recipe every time they make the dish, no matter how often they've made it before, and won't make something if they have to make a substitution.

They grew up eating my "experiments," so maybe that's why, but unless the entire family (6 kids, their spouses and their kids) is humoring me, everybody thinks I am the better cook! Go figure!

Hot melon is good, but I've never tried to bake it. Maybe I will now.

"If I need a recipe, I invariably look at several recipes, until I get the gist of it. Then I go ahead and cook without following any particular one." Jim

That's exactly how I do it when trying something new.

Sometimes I'll do a search on epicurious.com, listing a couple of ingredients that I have on hand that I think might go together, just to see what comes up in the results, then I make up something based on ideas I've gathered.

most of my changes reflect what i doo NOT have on hand....Kay

I think adjusting are how great recipes are born. I can't claim that fame but I think most recipes are guidelines. I try to use what I have on hand within reason. I usually make the recipe as written the first time if it is a complete new recipe and then tweek from there if it's worth redoing. Some recipes I've had for years and used over and over and lately I've wondered why I haven't tried different variations. This forum is encouraging me that way.

I use recipes as guidelines; keep a stocked pantry so don't necessarily shop for the meal or recipe and sometimes the dish turns out sooooooo delicious, but alterations of the recipe, substitutions for whatever reason, additions, mistakes, I know I can never reproduce the exact dish again. Using as much fresh ingredients as possible also changes the flavors. Soups & stews are especially subject to adjustments!
I watched an episode recently of Barefoot Contessa, where she was finalizing a recipe for one of her cookbooks. She was so dedicated in recording her exact changes. Of course that's why we buy her cookbooks and watch her shows!

Like most people here, yes, I adjust and even invent my own recipes all the time. That IS the fun of cooking and eating, isn't it? =o)

I see two distinct approaches among the cooks who have posted on this thread.

One approach is to decide on a menu and recipes, then adapt, find or subsitute as necessary to reproduce those recipes as accurately as possible. The result is intended to fulfill predetermined expectations. This is the approach I would use in trying to recreate a memorable dish.

The other approach is to start with the ingredients and create a menu from them, based on knowledge, principles and experience. The menu and recipes are determined by the ingredients. I have a pretty clear idea of what I am trying to achieve when I start to cook. This is the approach I use in most of my cooking.

Jim

I am so glad to know that there are so many people here who "play" like I do when cooking.

My husband and I have a running joke...if he comments that something I made is especially good, I tell him to enjoy it because it will likely never be exactly the same again! Of course, he's a very good husband, who knows what to say, and tells me that it's o.k. if it never comes out the same again, as it will just be a different kind of delicious.

Honestly, I joked in a prior post about it being a birth defect, but I do wonder if it's something genetic. My mother, bless her heart, was a perfectly horrid cook, and her mother was possibly worse. To be fair, they neither of them particularly liked to cook, but did it anyway to feed their families. When I think how hard it would be to do something every day, several times a day, that I didn't like doing, I can't blame them.

I made my first "experimental" dish when I was about 6 years old. I decided to make desert for the family, and came up with "peanut butter soup with strawberries". Of course, I hadn't the technical skills to produce what I had in mind, which was sort of a peanut butter milk shake of sorts with chunks of strawberries...so what I ended up with was a bowl of milk with lumps of peanut butter and sliced strawberries in it. Oh well, live and learn! I still think that a peanut butter milkshake with chunks of strawberries in it would be pretty good, but I've never tried to make it again.