Taking liberties is something I do quite often when cooking. Why not? For the greater part, recipes are general guidelines; not carved-in-stone rules. It can be a lot of fun to see what you come up with!

Take The American Diabetes Association Vegetarian Cookbook. Day before yesterday I made Cauliflower Potato Cheddar Mash (pg. 87); and not exactly according to the recipe!

At Whole Foods this morning, I bought the two pounds of russet potatoes, and a head of cauliflower. My question here: the recipe says to peel the potatoes and cut them into large chunks. How big is \”large\”? And as to the cauliflower, how big is a \”floret\”? I started checking them for doneness after about 10 minutes of cooking, instead of 15-18 minutes as the recipe says; and the potatoes were done enough! Oh, well — that cut down on prep time a bit.

The recipe calls for 1/2 cup 2% milk; I substituted plain, low-fat yogurt. Because I wasn\’t using liquid milk, I reserved some of the cooking water; but used only 2-3 tablespoons of it. Instead of the 2 teaspoons of butter in the book\’s version, I used 2 teaspoons of olive oil.

I had some Progresso® Broccoli-Cheddar soup in the freezer. I thawed it and used 1/4 cup of it, rather than the 1/4 cup of shredded, reduced-fat cheddar that the recipe specifies. I have to use up that soup somehow!

The 4 chopped scallions I left as is. I didn\’t measure them, but I estimate they made about 1 cup. I also didn\’t change the freshly-ground (OK, grated) nutmeg, nor the salt and pepper.

I\’m planning on taking liberties again next time I prepare this dish. There are many ways I could do it!