A good recipe is a starting point. The version your family asks for is the one you changed.

Instructions are an average, written for a stranger’s kitchen and a stranger’s taste. The version people actually request is the one adjusted to a particular oven, a particular pan, and the fact that your brother hates coriander. Those adjustments are not deviations from the real recipe, they are how a recipe becomes yours. Ownership comes from the changes, not the following.

Make something familiar this week and write your changes directly onto the recipe. More garlic, less time, a different cheese. After a few rounds you will have a document nobody else could have written, which is worth more than the original page.