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Anything with more than 1 obscure ingredient that i don't already own. I hate "investing" in an unproven recipe, only to have a cabinet full of spices that i don't know what to do with after the dish is cooked.

I'm pretty gung ho, but there are ingredients I shun. I'm not a picky vegetarian I swear, but gelatin just grosses me out.

I am currently trying to get over an irrational fear of raw eggs so I can make a fabulous sounding cake.

Things that require more than one day to properly prepare (i.e. "chill dough overnight", "infuse for 3 weeks", etc.). No way - i demand instant satisfaction! My food attention span just can't last that long.

sadly, anything that has cumin in it. The smell of it makes me sick. I can even tell if a dish has the most minuscule amount in it.

Any recipe that has pre-packaged or most canned ingredients in it. There are some exceptions but this is the biggest deal breaker. So basically you would not find me making any of dear Sandra Lee's recipes.

Anything with yeast. It's going to be too time consuming, and too many things can go wrong if you're not famliar with it.

Anything that calls for a technique or equipment I've only seen on Iron Chef America. Mario Battali, I'm not.

Mayo. Hold the Mayo or no deal! Oh yea, and anything with too many eggs. One or two is fine, but when you have a cake with a dozen eggs in it, it is no longer a cake. It's an omelet.

I bake and I'm a stickler for doing it all from scratch (I really enjoy the whole process). I was given a small book of desserts from Paula Deen (who I generally enjoy), unfortunately at least half of the recipes call for grocery store cake mixes. NOT interested!

Equipment I don't have - ice cream makers, tart pans, charcoal grill, pressure cooker, slow cooker. Also, anything with vegetable shortening.

Chickpeas/Garbonzos. I hate them - they make me want to gag. I like hummus, but hate them in their true form or pureed in anything else. I immediately stop reading when that ingredient comes up.

Any recipe that has shrimp. I don't know why, but I haven't yet gotten over years of watching my dad gorge himself on the christmas eve (frozen, store bought) shrimp cocktail. Yuck!!

2 words... DEEP FRY... I won't and you can't make me. Not that I won't eat it... I just don't want the mess. (the hus. would say I'm messy enough as it is.)

I have a lot. Lack of a grill and ice cream maker really bum me out, especially during the summer, and especially because I really love ice cream. I don't use a lot of processed food--recipes asking for canned soup really turns me off. I have to sadly put aside recipes asking for expensive cuts of meat or fish, or any other rare and expensive ingredients because those things aren't usually in my budget. Also, since 90% of my cooking is just for me, unless it makes for good freezing/leftovers, I have to pass on those, too.

Recipes that require

1. LENTILS
2. deep frying
3. poaching
4. expensive ingredients that I rarely use
5. raisins

Fish. I don't like the taste, smell, texture or appearance. I won't cook it and you can't make me. Oddly enough, I'm fine with fish sauce so long as there's not enough of it for the fishy smell to be noticable.

I had a hard time coming up with things, though. I'm willing to try most things at least once, including techniques and flavors. If it sounds like tons of work it just happens on a day off.

Raisins. No raisins ever are to come into contact with my mouth. I find them repulsive. No oatmeal-raisin cookies here, no thank you! Anything other than that I will try if time and budget allow.

There's not much. The more I cook the more I overcome my fear of certain ingredients, the more I find out where to source odd products, etc. I probably would skip anything calling for sodium alginate or similar, but that's mainly because I have no clue when it comes to molecular gastronomy. I've never eaten in a restaurant that does this kind of food so would have no idea where to begin.
It is interesting, a year ago I wouldn't have touched a recipe calling for yeast; now I bake bread twice a week (I made my own sourdough starter!), and have made pita, hamburger buns, cinnamon rolls. Paying four dollars for a loaf of bread is what drove me to start, and now I can't imagine buying bread.

Deal breaker is always time. If there are overnight or several hour wait times or it just looks like there are enough steps to keep me in the kitchen for more than three hours then forget it.

kneading, pasta from scratch, or anything else that requires flour to be dusted across a wide swath of surface area. it's too much of a pain to clean up.

anything calling for mixes or prepared foods (i'll make an exception for salsa and curry powder, and maybe cream of mushroom if i'm doing something really old-school, like a tuna casserole).

anything that mixes ethnic foodways irresponsibly (for example, combining marinara sauce and cheddar cheese).

anything requiring more than a cup of butter.

Broiling- my broiler sucks
Temps over 450- fire alarms go off
pretty much any baking- I suck
candy thermometer- just too finicky.

Anything that requires special tools, and anything that combines eggs and onions. I will eat an omelet or quiche, but I will not make them, as I merely tolerate the taste for the sake of nutrition.

What used to be a dealbreaker: Shrimp. I was scared out of my mind that I'd prep them improperly and give everyone food poisoning.

What still is a dealbreaker: Grilling. New York apartment no balcony = No ability to grill :(

Expensive ingredients for me. I find that a lot of recipes (with a good reason, I'm sure) call for fresh expensive spice that or hand picked produce that. That's great, but if I'm trying something for the first time on the fly, I usually turn to something with more "normal" ingredients.

Anything that involves kneading and for the same reasons as "thinkingwoman" gave: it's too much of a hassle and rarely do my breads or pie crusts turn out. The no-knead bread from 18 months ago was a godsend.

Nothing is a deal breaker. I'll try anything once.

These days, anything that's got more than 6 ingredients and will take hours to make, and requires me to make some special stock or sauce from scratch to accompany it, is a deal breaker because I do not have time.

In cocktails, anything with egg whites and lime turns me off.

I have to avoid gluten...so pretty much anything with wheat, barley, and rye...I haven't done a lot of experiencing with different gluten free flours, hopefully I will have time soon...other than that I'm open to pretty much anything!

Capers or olives. I really don't like that vinegary, briny flavor at all.

Buttermilk. It's hard to find here, for some reason and I don't know what I can use instead. Oh, how many times I've yearned to try a delicious looking recipe for jimmy cakes!

Marinate...

If I see the word "mayonnaise" I gag and move on; it's the white death.

Eggplant--sadly, I have an allergy and it makes the inside of my mouth feel like it's swarming with ants.

Anything involving processed foods or mixes. Not interested.

Helping my grandmother prepare Christmas eve dinners (southern Italian, so the meal always includes seven kinds of seafood) turned me against shrimp forever. My first job as a teenage helper at that meal was peeling and deveining five pounds of shrimp, and since that tender age I've found the smell of raw shrimp nauseating.

Almost anything else, I'll try--even grilling recipes often end up under my broiler, since I don't have better options.

I know people will gasp at this, but... any dish where tomatoes or onions are a central focus. I detest them. This will make most people sad (I'm sure my husband wishes it weren't so), but it's true. I've recently learned that some recipes can't be altered to avoid these ingredients, but instead need to just not be made. A sandwich where carmelized onions are one of the main ingredients will not be as yummy when I leave them out. So I don't even try anymore.

And I agree with whoever mentioned the candy thermometer.

Oh, and recipes where all the measurements are in metric. It's just way too much work to convert it.

kls987: I thought I was the only person on earth who couldn't stand tomatoes! Good to know there's another one out there. Sometimes even just watching people eat them makes me feel ill, and I have no idea why. I will eat tomato sauce on pizza, though (it's the only exception to my tomato hatred), but prefer very little (or none) to a slice swimming in sauce.

Eve in Hochelaga you can just add a few teaspoons of vinegar to a cup of regular milk as a buttermilk substitute.

As a vegetarian, anything with meat is obviously a deal breaker. Other than that, I'm willing to try pretty much anything...

"Eviscerate"

anything with cooked eggs. i'm getting better - i've eaten them out at brunch if they're in things (i.e. breakfast burrito or panino) but will not eat them by themselves or prepare them myself.
i will, however, use them in baking.

Over the long run nothing is a dealbreaker some things just take more time/effort to pull off. Over the short run something as simple as turning on the oven can be a dealbreaker if the weather is hot enough.

It depends on what mood I am in as to how complicated I am willing to go with a recipe. As far as ingredients, I am super picky. The main reason I enjoy cooking is so that I can cater a recipe to my tastes. I rarely make a recipe as written.

Using dried beans. I use canned. I know this sounds like the easiest thing ever, but mine never turn out quite right.

Filo dough. I love filo dough! But the idea of coping with all those delicate, sticky leaves of dough--and God, forget about making it from scratch! I just know I'll be sweating and swearing like a sailor in about 30 seconds. I enjoy my little spinach-in-filo appetizers at catered events or occasionally from the freezer case. Can't face making them.

In fact, any kind of sticky dough makes me vicious. Filo is just the trickiest of all, I think.

When multiple recipe ingredients are actually other recipes in the book that need to be made before the entire dish can be done.

Cheesecloth. I've never gotten around to buying any. Sorry excuse? Yes, it is.

Also, springform cake pans. Don't have any. Lack of proper equipment is a big one for me.

Ingredients don't bother me most of the time, but labor intensive recipes do. Also, things like cleaning squid or handling live lobsters... can't really find myself willing.

cmcinnyc, filo is not sticky at all, its a lot like working with sheets of paper. As for making it from scratch, everyone just buys a pack of sheets, I don't think you could make it at home if you tried.

Corn mixed with anything. Straight corn on the cob, that's it. Also, tomatoes in soup, where they are the main thing or even a side notes, can't do it ever, I don't know if it's the acidity, but I hate it. However, I can eat gazpacho and love it. Deep frying, love the food, hate the work.

It depends -- I'd say for me it's either something that requires an especially fiddly technique or a tool or obscure ingredient I don't own, AND does not allow for substitution.

In other words, there are meringue and cream puff recipes that call for a piping bag to pipe out the dough/meringue onto a baking sheet, and I don't have a piping bag, but I just use a regular drop-from-a-teaspoon method and deal with slightly-imperfect-looking meringues and cream puffs. If I don't have blood orange juice but I do have regular orange juice, I'll use the regular orange instead. If I have my heart set on making a particular something on a certain day and only too late do I see that it says "allow to sit 24 hours", either I make something else and do the intended recipe another time, or I just go ahead and make it and defer the pleasure.

But something that requires me to cut things in a precise fashion and assemble it like a house of cards and then balance the whole thing in a specifically-designed tool before resting a duck press upon the whole, that kind of thing I take a pass. If a recipe involves "this tool and no other", then forget it.

Any recipe requiring a candy thermometer. Luckily, I've figured out how to make caramel without one

Beating egg whites until stiff. I'm just too lazy to do this for pancakes and other baked goods.

Anything with too much saturated fat. If there's more than a stick of butter or if it calls for baconfat or lard, I'm not interested in eating it.

1) Premade food. My biggest pet peeves here are store-bought salad dressings, cake/cobbler/cookie mix, pasta sauces.
2) Deep frying. I lack the time for that sort of clean-up.
3) Pig's Feet. Any feet, really.

Iffy on mayo.

Oh my, this was fun to read. : ) You all rock!

My deal breakers are: anything needing to be at a certain temperature (i own no thermometers), cheese cloth (the only one i bought was "bloodied" for a halloween prop), has a lot of mayo (so high in fat i don't think it's worth it) or a lot of onions. And of course those involving equipment i don't own (am constantly updating my "kitchen wishlist" on amazon.com... And must agree with someone above- if it calls for two things that i don't own (and especially if i've never heard of it before!) i'm too lazy to go out for it.

Cilantro! If it seems that this evil herb is the main flavor in a dish, I don't bother substituting or anything, it's just a no-no.

Equipment isn't usually a deal breaker. I'll try and substitute in any way possible. Ingredients and cooking techniques will break the deal, however.
Can't stand vinegar, a single waft makes me want to urp. Especially champagne vinegar, white vinegar and tarragon vinegar. Oh yeah, that's another one - tarragon.
I do my best to avoid deep frying, too. It has always bothered my eyes, like cutting an onion.

wow! I'm entranced and deeply sympathetic... childhood counts for a lot... I draw the line at fussy wussy ingredients that don't seem to belong to any tradition (powdered porcini) or if I feel like I'm being asked to pretend I'm anywhere I'm not (Provence, Tuscany), and I'm very aware of my own limitations of skill or talent (I bake styrofoam cookies and sinkhole cakes), otherwise I love the magical mystery tour of obeying instructions that don't make any kind of sense to me... the geniuses who invented cuisines never met a counter-intuition they didn't want to act on, thank god... any cookbook when first encountered is a trust game... once I trust, I follow....

basically I ask myself if I want to eat it

Beef, any ground meat, deep frying, icing sugar, crushed cornflakes, marachino (sp?) cherries, anything candied, heavy cream, anything that requires more than an hour in the oven.

Cool, thanks for the tip Button!