“Recipe: A series of step-by-step instructions for preparing ingredients you forgot to buy…’

“Recipe—A series of step-by-step instructions for preparing ingredients you forgot to buy in utensils you don’t own to make a dish the dog won’t eat the rest of.”
 
This popular definition is often cited as “author unknown,” but it comes from the book Cooking: A Cook’s Dictionary (1985) by Henry Beard and Roy McKie (illustrator). Beard & McKie authored several books together that provided humorous definitions in the worlds of cooking, gardening, fishing, sailing, skiing, golfing and computing.
 
     
Wikipedia: Henry Beard
Henry N. Beard (born ca. 1945) is an American humorist, one of the founders of the magazine National Lampoon and the author of several best-selling books.
 
Wikipedia: Roy McKie
Roy McKie (usually spelled “McKié”) was an illustrator of children’s books, most notably under the Dr. Seuss imprint. He illustrated many books penned by Theodor Seuss Geisel (Dr. Seuss) under the pen name Theo. LeSieg (“Geisel” spelled backwards).

Books illustrated by McKie include:
(...)
Cooking by Roy McKie & Henry Beard—1985—dictionary of funny cooking terms
   
OCLC WorldCat record
Cooking : a cook’s dictionary
by Henry Beard; Roy McKie  
Type:  Book; English
Publisher: New York : Workman Pub., ©1985.
 
Google Books
The Bachelor Home Companion:
A Practical Guide to Keeping House Like a Pig
By P. J. O’Rourke
New York, NY: Atlantic Monthly Press
1997
Pg. 63:
“Recipe—A series of step-by-step instructions for preparing ingredients you forgot to buy in utensils you don’t own to make a dish the dog won’t eat the rest of.”
—HENRY BEARD AND ROY McKIE, A Cook’s Dictionary