D. thinks:

Cooking is more of an art than a science. (Though baking at times can be an exception.) A cook learns flavors the way a painter learns colors and both use their corresponding medium to try and create something beautiful.

Before you think I am going off the deep end, consider it this way. There is a common misconception that cooking is defined by recipes and that good cooks are able to execute them well. It is often forgotten that, though you might go along with it, someone just made that recipe up. There was some trial and error involved to get things exact perhaps (not necessarily), but someone made up that tasty dish either by luck or artistic insight.
To cook by executing recipes is like paint-by-numbers. If you paint where the numbers tell you to, you'll probably get a good picture. But it was probably a real artist that made the picture that was broken into small areas with numbers so you, the novice, could mimic it. Paint-by-numbers might be a good way to learn to paint, but real painting is more free and heartfelt than that. So is real cooking.

So be set free; you don't have to do it the way you've always thought you had to. Real life, like cooking, is more of an art than a science.