How I Create Recipes

I was transitioning between a lunge and a downward dog in yoga class when a voice whispered in my ear. "Lemon bars with a chocolate crust," it said. I moved from downward dog into plank and chatarunga while contemplating if the teacher would hate me if I stop and tapped a few words into my phone. I didn't want to risk it, so that became my mantra for the class. Lemon bars with a chocolate crust. Lemon bars with a chocolate crust. I did remember it and striding out of the gym, proud of two things, I typed it into the Notepad app on my phone. And that, ya'll, is how I come up with recipes ... sometimes.

People ask me how I create so many recipes, and especially some of the more unusual ones! The answer is more boring than you might expect: lists and organization. If I don't write something down, it'll float right out of my head and into the beyond like a beautiful butterfly I didn't take a photo of to capture the moment.

That's right, the key to creativity is being Type A and keeping your thoughts together. Your brain has so many amazing thoughts each and every day, but they will fly right back out of your head unless you're in the habit of recording them. It's not about processing them in the moment, it's about catching them with your net (your pen or phone) and storing them in your jar poked full of air holes (a notepad or Notepad app) and examining them later when you have time to really look at what they mean or could mean.

Sometimes I am inspired by a menu at a restaurant at lunch, or a photo on Instagram, or even a color I see out in the world. When inspiration strikes, I ensnare it in words. Sometimes it's on my Notepad app, just a bulleted list of random thoughts, and sometimes it's handwritten. I've scrawled things on my arm while driving, but I prefer to write them on paper, whether it's the reporter's pad I keep in my purse, a sticky note at work, or jotted on the magnetic whiteboard on the side of the fridge.

When I need inspiration I'll gather these fragments of thinking and process them quietly, throwing out the terrible or unintelligible ideas, and forming the half-ideas into more fully functional ones. The ideas that are good straight out of the can (the rare gems), I will transfer to the whiteboard for development. Sometimes these ideas hang out for months, like the chocolate & lemon! that manifested during yoga class into lemon bars with a chocolate crust.

With working a full-time day job and having several long-term freelance clients, my time at home that's allotted to creating is at a premium. I need to be efficient, and while I sometimes create recipes on weeknights after work, then photograph them, eat them, and blog about them in the same night, or even over a span of two nights, it's rare. Marathon creativity weekends are my favorite way to create a lot of recipes and photos at once, then I trickle them over over the next few weeks. I don't always get to do this, and sometime the marathon is more like a 5k where I turn out only one or two recipes for the weekend.

Those marathon recipe weekends are when I feel creativity oozing out of me. I mean, once I get going, the creating begets creating and all of a sudden it's Sunday night, my feet hurt, and the fridge is jam packed with pre-made food for the week ahead and it's all I can do to not call out sick and keep the party going through Monday, and Tuesday and... yeah, so you can see why I don't do that. I might never go back to work!

The key to these marathon sessions whether I turn our one or five recipes, photos, and complete blog posts in a 2.5 day span is also organization and lists. I start Friday at the latest, making my list of things to make, and the corresponding grocery needs. I will often go to the grocery store at lunch or on the way home from work (sometimes both if there are specialty ingredients that need to come from various stores), and stock up on everything needed. Then I'll begin Friday night, making a bloggable dinner, then starting on any recipes that need an overnight in the fridge, or soaking beans for the next day.

Saturday I'll either go to the farmers market or just dive in and make something for breakfast that maybe isn't typical breakfast food, but is on my list of food to make for the weekend. As things are simmering or baking, I'll begin typing up posts, translating from my handwritten notes while measuring. I'll also be uploading and editing photos while food heats/cools/sets/bakes, or whatever it's doing. The rest of the day is a back and forth between making and writing, until somehow it's dark and I realize I haven't stepped out underneath the sky the entire day. But I'm happy and full, so it's not a loss to me.

On Sundays I'll try to leave the house a few times, but also will sprinkle in some more final dishes, including things to take for lunch throughout the week. Believe it or not, I'll sometimes go back to the grocery store to get actual weekly staples, like milk and yogurt, which I don't always think about on my ingredient missions before the weekend. I also try to walk the dog too, because she isn't crazy and deserves time outside!

As the weekend winds down, if I'm lucky I can schedule out several complete blog posts for the next week or so, but because blogging never ends, it's on to the next steps — making pins for Pinterest, scheduling posts for social media, responding to emails, and re-ordering my ideas list for the next go round of creating recipes. And that, my friends, is when you'll see lemon bars with a chocolate crust ... in a few weeks. Namaste.