Wow! I was planning to start a thread similar to this one because I wasn't aware this one existed, I was still workshoping the cooking mama joke that I was going to write in the title.
I also love cooking and making recipes into my own, that being said I do like to follow recipes when I'm learning to prepare something the first couple of times, just to learn what it is that makes it good, and then after a couple of times I start changing stuff.
In Mexico the concepts of lunch and dinner are switched if we compare it to the U.S, the meal we eat between 1 p.m and 4 p.m is the main meal of the day and we call it "la comida", while our dinner (between 7 p.m and 9 p.m) tends to be something lighter and with a lot less food.
A thing I always do for dinner is making a burrito out of leftovers of what I ate earlier in the day (burritos tend to be smaller over here, the huge california style burritos are called burros or burrotes), sometimes the results aren't very good but some recent ones that were fantastic are: miso ramen burrito, biryani burrito (what is a tortilla de harina if not thiner naan) and a mapo tofu burrito.
Also if i'm lazy and I don't have the time to make naan or pita when cooking something that is traditionaly eaten with either, i'll just use a tortilla de harina instead.
Since I'm vegan most of what I do is not traditional, finding the right meat substitute for every mexican dish has been a fun challange since I stopped eating meat, for some meals I use crushed chickpeas with mushrooms, for some other quinoa, at times tofu, a mix of veggies or even just seasoned soy.
I tend to be more delicate when it comes to meat substitutes in mexican food because I was so used to the traditional taste and texture of when I ate meat; in contrast when making something like Kkanpunggi out of tofu I don't think it twice because I didn't grow up with korean food.
Some of my recent highlights when it comes to non-traditional recipes are:
-Adding kombu tsukudani to my quinoa ceviche.
After cooking the konbu I put it on the freezer so it mixes well with the freshness of the ceviche and the combination tastes amazing.
-Sweet Potato (Camotes Enmielados) and walnut pie
Camotes Enmiealados or dulce de camote is a very mexican dessert which involves cooking sweet potato with piloncillo and cinammon and it's delcious, and a couple of months ago I came up with a recipe for a sweet potato pie with layers of crushed walnuts with agave honey Ă la baklava. It turned out delicious.
-Adding Pozole grains and a little bit of chile colorado to miso ramen.
Essentially combining ramen and pozole. It's great.
Oh and I will also add fried tofu and tahini to any creamy soup. (and also lentil soup)