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Went to my grandma's old house last weekend and found her recipe box in the attic
She passed about 8 years ago and nobody really touched her stuff. But I was clearing out some boxes and found this old metal recipe box with handwritten cards inside. Her chicken and dumplings recipe was in there, the one she always made for Sunday dinners. Thing is, the measurements are all weird like "a pinch of this" and "enough flour til it feels right." Made me realize we lost so much when she went. Tried making it last night and it came out okay but not the same. Anyone have luck converting old relative recipes to actual measurements?
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matthewmartin27d ago
Did you try writing down what you did step by step as you made it? That's what worked for me with my mom's chili recipe. She never measured anything either, so I just stood there with a notepad one time while she made it and wrote down every pour and pinch in real time. Ended up with a rough set of measurements that got me close enough. It might take a few tries, but you'll start to notice patterns in how she wrote things. That "enough flour til it feels right" part is probably the hardest one to crack, but once you nail it once, you'll remember the feel.
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rubysingh27d ago
It's funny how recipes get passed down like that, almost like a secret language between generations. My mom does the same thing with her baking, "a handful of chocolate chips" and "bake until it smells done." You just have to learn the feel of it, which takes years and lots of failed batches. That's why those handwritten cards are so special, they're not just instructions, they're a record of how your grandma cooked and tasted things by instinct. Maybe try making it a few more times, paying attention to the dough after each step, you might start to get a sense of what "feels right" meant to her.
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rubysingh27d ago
Is it really that deep though? I mean, it's just chocolate chip cookies at the end of the day. You could probably find a decent recipe online and be done in half the time without all the guesswork.
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