Never cooked anything to a recipe before in my life. Partly because I fucking hate rules and partly because I?m just generally crap at following them, which is probably why I hate them so much. I can normally figure out what goes into something and how it?s cooked from eating it. If not I will look up about 3 or 4 different takes on the recipe and read these to get the general idea and the different variations. I then chuck them away and I work out the way I want to do it. Then it?s open a bottle of wine or beer, secure the pinny, knives, fire and away we go. I would be lying if I said that this method hasn?t produced some spectacular failures. Normally it works quite well though and I feel that trial and error helps me get a proper intuitive feel for what I?m cooking. This seems to work better for me than following a regimented checklist. As for lopping off digits, I try to stick to this rule: ?Don?t cut your fingers off numb-nuts!?