I'm getting stuck for things to cook each week and in an effort to offer variety I'm just serving meals that aren't successful. So just wondering how often you serve the same meal or how many meals do you have in your rotation?
Printable View
I'm getting stuck for things to cook each week and in an effort to offer variety I'm just serving meals that aren't successful. So just wondering how often you serve the same meal or how many meals do you have in your rotation?
a few times lol...depending on what we have in
Depends on what we feel like.
We tend to have three things very often (like 2-4 times a fortnight):
Chicken Satay with Rice
Steak Dianne with Potato Bake
Honey Soy Beef Stirfry with Noodles
We usually have the same things once a month I'd say. I'm testing out new recipes & some of the better ones are being used more often at the moment.
I'd say every few weeks.
DH likes meat, mash & vegies, but I don't so we might have it 2 - 3 times a week, but always different meat.
Probably fortnightly for things like spaghetti and basic meals like meat and veg (chicken with vegies, gravey/ lamb chops, salad and chips...etc) I do try to cook something new at least once a fortnight too.
when DH is home, we don't have the same thing at all for at least a week - and we try to make sure it's stuff he doesn't have while he's away (lives in a truck, so he gets mostly casserole/slow cooker meals that heat up ok on the road). so we do steak, roast etc when he's home. when he's not home, i don't really care - i just cook whatever is there cos i'm a girl of pretty simple tastes really!
having said that, when i do cook something, i try to cook for two nights minimum - so if i do spag bol for me, i'll eat it tonight, then again tomorrow night (or the one after) because it's more financialy viable - and second night, i'll make it different anyway (pasta bake instead of spag bol)
our usual rotation if DH home for five days would go something like this
steak and veg
stirfry of some sort
lamb chops/steak and veg
fish and chips/chook and chips/praws and wedges - really depends on what is in the freezer - always home cooked
roast and all the trimmings - left over meat goes into shepherds pie for me for the next night when he leaves (or stretches further for him if he's still home)
you can really do a lot with these kinds of meals - stirfrys (if you're not confident in fresh) can come from a jar or packet and still taste good. fish and chips type meal can be pretty much anything that is simple to oven bake. or make a coating for chicken (you can buy these - we often use either southern fried coating, or a simple burrito mix YUM) lightly fried and serve with oven baked chips/wedges/baked spuds. throw a side of frozen vegies and it's a good meal
we then mix it up a bit if we're bored - throw in enchiladas (if we feel like chicken) burritos/tacos if we feel like mince. left over burrito/taco mince makes AWESOME toasted sandwiches, or can be kept to make a mexican baked spud the next night. two completely different meals, but both tasty
baked spuds are also really simple. you can do the one above, or just fry off some trim bacon bits, onion, throw in pineapple, bit of garlic/herb butter, cheese, and top with coleslaw (i get packets of dry slaw from the supermarket cos i don't like much mayo/dressing)... it can be fairly simple to add variety like that.
now, if you're working on what meat you have in the freezer, or you buy similar stuff each week, just jazz up your veg for something different. or add a rub to the meat (garlic/onion rub is always nice) to make it a bit different. we might have steak/mash/veg one night, but have the same steak a few nights later, with roast veg.
hope all that waffle helps a little bit!
Hardly ever - I try to cook produce that is in season, so that means that the available set of ingredients changes on a regular basis.
The whole food approach that we are using really helps ensuring that your diet is varied as you have to get inventive to use all the different bits of the animal or vegetable.
As an example...if we get some prawns, then I'll make a sauce or stock with the shells and heads (they have all the flavour), the sauce will require some seasonal veggie, and will probably be served with some sort of fish - at the moment that's fennel but will only use a little bit of the fennel bulb - so now I've got fennel to make into something, last night it was fennel, pumpkin and chicken risotto - the risotto needed a stock, so I bought a whole chook, made a stock with the bones, added the breasts to the risotto...but now I've got the legs and some left over stock, so I'm making cauliflower soup for lunch and have to decide what to do with the legs for dinner.
It takes a bit of time to get your head around doing your meal planning as a flow like this instead of thinking about individual meals - but it's a lot more efficient, and saves a lot of money as you waste much less.
There are a few recipes that appear regularly, but even those don't tend to crop up more than once a month - I keep an eye on the cookery channel, look at restaurant reviews, menus, magazine articles and then see if I can find a matching recipes on the internet when something catches my eye.
TheBear - you are one super husband!! Can you teach my DH some tricks? hehe
I try to always cook something different & OFTEN try to make someth8ng that will do 2 nights or so..
Like roast we will have with everything, but next night it might be the Roast meat with fried rice & steamed greens, then the next night might be pasta & the following will be left over pasta in baked potatoes or pies or something... So it's leftovers but a bit different, I try to not cook same thing within 3-4 wks!!!
I try to avoid making the same thing twice in 1 month.
My brother and his GF come over here every Wednesday night for dinner, and have been dong so since the end of Jan, and they have never had the same thing twice since coming here, which is great for them as they are Uni students and don't get much of a chance to try different things very often, so they try them at my house :)
We have our favourites, and I probably cook some repeat meals about twice a month.
I like to use Continental meal flavour bases. Stroganoff, Apricot chicken, pork in plum sauce, greek pita pockets etc. They are quick and easy, tho I don't always follow them exactly. I add extra vegies to bulk it out a bit. I try and make sure every meal makes at least 4 serves. I try things that I wouldn't normally try and if I don't like them I don't buy them again! Jar sauces are great too. Add meat and vege and pasta or rice. use different kinds of pasta...try gnocchi or raviolli etc to add variety.
HTH :)
As I cant cook my poor family has to eat the same thing every FN... wish I could cook I have just brought myself the recipes + mag which has some great ideas so this FN I hope I can pull my finger out and make something different... Doesnt help I really HATE food its so dull....:wall:
We definitely have weekly favourites but we go through phases, at the moment we're in slow cooker phase so lots of soups, stews, casseroles etc. Things like spag bol or meat and veg we have at least once a week or once a fortnight.
For ages we were in stir fry phase but we're over that now and haven't had one for ages. Lately I've been doing potato bake and a roast once a fortnight too.
Oh Tali I almost wish I had your problem!!! I love food too much, as does my DH, so we spend too much time thinking about it, planning it, cooking it and eating it LOL. We get so much enjoyment out of food. Well DH loves the planning and eating parts, I love all of it, particularly reading about it, cooking it and eating it!
And I wonder why I can't lose that 8 kgs!!!!!!
Depends on the season, there are some old favourites that get pulled out every fortnight or so, others we go for awhile without. Bear, I wish I had the time to cook and eat like you do, I think it's a wonderful way to live, so does DH!
We rotate our meals weekly and after reading this thread I feel slack for not doing new recipes! LOL :redface:
We do spag bol, lamb casserole, beef stir fry, roast chicken pieces with veg, and DP makes a yummy pasta and also a lamb steaks with a balsamic sauce and mashed sweet potato...sometimes I'll do a tuna bake or a curry...been avoiding curries while breastfeeding as they don't go down too well with bubs, which is a bummer cause I love curries. Most of our meals we aim to have leftovers for lunch the next day.
Once DS starts going longer between feeds and having longer sleeps I hope to start making some new yummy meals as I love cooking when I have lots of time :)
If it was up to DP it would be the same every night, some store bought chicken stuffed with ham and cheese (the name escapes me for the moment) packet pasta (usually alfredo) and peas, carrots and corn (frozen of course).
I on the other hand prefer some variety but I have my favorites. We tend to go over the same menu every month but sometimes those favorites will pop up twice in that month. Hope that made sense :lol:
LOL we have the same thing every week :redface: We're boring meat and vege people so that's pretty much three times a week. A stirfry gets chucked in and a pasta and a lasagne. Makes it easier to shop and DF is a fussy eater so makes it easy for us I guess. I used to be a really adventurous cook but DF limits my imagination. :rolleyes:
I try to cook with what's in season and what's on special at my butcher.
Some things we only have once a month or less if the ingredients are season but other things we have quite often. We have lamb curry about once a fortnight because we all like it so much - I have one going in the SC right now.
My MIL cooks the same meal 19 times out of 20!!!! It is rice, salad and a sauce with meat, ginger, onion, tomatoe paste and garlic. Even on the rare occasions that FIL cooks something else she still dishes out meal A with it.
She serves it up for lunch as well as dinner!!!!
I don't know how my FIL copes. My Dad started to complain after eating 3 meals there lol.
We have waves of eating same few things and then not having them for ages.
Most fortnights we will have a spag bol, a roast, chicken wings and what ever else.
We go through phases with food. Some months it seems like we stick with the same few dishes then all of a sudden we remember a dish we have not made in ages and then our menu seems to change. Most of the time meals are based on what meat is on special or what suits us at the moment, such as a meal that goes for a couple of nights. If a dish turns out really well I will tend to repeat it frequently till I am sick of it. Summers we tend to be a lot more repetitive, basically what cooks well on the BBQ and salad.
Once we have our vegie patch going I am sure things will change.
Glad I am not the only one who does the same thing over and over again lol
my moto is if it isnt in a jar or from a packet I cant cook it....I do love to LOOK at recipes but next to never try to cook them...
mostly I cook chicken chicken and a bit more chicken expecally while BHL is away...
Like the ad says "If you dont like chicken there something wrong with you!"
It really doesn't have to be a terribly time consuming thing if you don't want it to be, there are lots of little tricks that you can use to minimise the time spent in the kitchen.:
If you get a chance, watch how professional chef's work - they will prepare a load of little bins "mis en place" full of all the raw and/or semi-prepared things that they use on a regular basis - from this they can often produce 20-30 different dishes in a few minutes. They are also very good at keeping multiple things going at once - it's no good standing at the stove doing one thing, you may as well have two or three pots going to make better use of your time.
The same techniques can be applied at home - I use a lot of little zip lock bags and vacuum seal bags to allow things to be done in stages, so I can reach into the fridge and grab bags of chopped, prepared veggies, sauces, etc to assemble a dish quickly. If I'm in the kitchen waiting for the toaster, the kettle to boil, or usually cause I've run the hot water for the washing up too hot and I can't put my hands into it - then I'll spend the time chopping or peeling something ready for the next meal, then bag it and put it away until I need it. As an example - many of sauces that I make start with frying onion, celery and carrot so it's always worth making sure that I've got little bags of pre-chopped ready to go into the pan.
The biggest time saver is a good knife and knife skills - practice chopping and cutting things properly concentrate on speed and accuracy and everything else gets faster.
One of my favourite cook books is Nigel Slater's "Appetite" - it's full of very simple, quick basic recipes that encourage variation - for example, one of the recipes is for a pan-fried veal escallope, it then has about 20 variations to serve it with oranges, parsley, garlic, oranges, nuts, basil, etc...it's great because once you have the basic techniques down you are encouraged to broaden your repertoire.
Most packets and jars are massive rip-off for what you are actually getting - especially when they are for classic italian dishes. There is a saying that "French food demonstrates the genius of the chef, Italian food demonstrates the genius of God!" - good italian food is about the simplest form of cooking on the planet, the key thing is getting the ingredient from field to plate with minimal interference. I have a friend that used to buy jars of carbonara sauce to cook a couple of times a week, and was shocked to discover that if you make the sauce fresh then all it contains is eggs, cream, parmesan and optionally ham...and you don't even need to cook it as it is cooked by the heat of the hot pasta. Effectively she was paying $8 per liter for a cream and egg solution in a jar! The directions on the pre-made sauce actually took longer than making it from scratch.
This may be wandering outside the scope of this topic....would it be helpful if I can provide simple recipes to replace the cans, jars and bottled sauces that you commonly use?
I don't repeat things very often but there are somethings that might come out on a fortnightly basis, like spag bog, or hot chicken from the shop down the road LOL! I do however have a lot of leftovers when DH is away (ie all the time right now) so I either freeze some and bring it out in a few weeks time, or vary it so it's a bit different on the second night.
I have a good friend who makes spag bog every Sunday night like a religion, it's because it's quick and doesn't require any thought at the end of the weekend.
Yes Yes Yes!!! :):
this May Be Wandering Outside The Scope Of This Topic....would It Be Helpful If I Can Provide Simple Recipes To Replace The Cans, Jars And Bottled Sauces That You Commonly Use?
Nothing wrong with starting a family tradition ;) I come from a family that likes a Sunday roast and I have to admit that the world always seems nice and stable when I eat roast on a Sunday.:
We get take-away or eat out every Saturday night. It's the cook's night off :P
Why not start a new thread. I'm sure that lots of people would find it helpful :D:
We dont repeat meals much - we do have a few quick and easys, but mostly we cook with what has been brought - usually fresh veg (typically whats got a reduced sticker and whats in season). We have basics we always keep in the cupboard such as garlic, rice, oyster sauce, tin tomatoes, coconut cream, spices etc.
We never ever buy packet or jar sauces, because they are too pricey (ie; a bottle of oyster sauce which can be used for about 5+ meals is about $4, where as a jar for one meal is $2-3) and we dont use them because we dont think they taste as nice as a freshly prepared sauce.
When we do repeat something though we could have it 2x a week.
Such as making egg fried rice, because its so quick, easy, cheap and tastey and we will always have those basic ingediants in stock.
There is perhaps some other dishes that we might make once every 2 weeks, such as a fresh fish meal. (we dont have a regular shopping day so its when ever we go to the shops and remember to get fish).
Alot of our meals are one off`s, but Im hoping to get some reliable recipes and try some new ideas of how to put things together.
Dach - same here, my mum has been doing a Sunday roast lunch ever since I can remember and now that all us kids are grown up and have our own families she still does it every week and it's great to go over there every Sunday. We do let her off on her birthday and mothers day though ;):
We have the same meal maybe 2-3 times a fortnight... and that's 3-4 different meals repeated and some different ones maybe once a month (that's things like fish and chips or pizza or frozen meals). We usually have a cooked Sunday dinner on Sundays, lasagne every other Monday night, I like the current Sainsbury cheap recipe cards so we have those quite a bit (that's a chicken meal and a salmon risotto atm). And there's the aubegine pasta that we all love and I can have for lunch the next day. I haven't done some of my favourites for a bit so will be doing some old favourites this next couple of months.
I like maybe about 20 dinners that I cook, but we have "easy" food at least twice a week as I'm at work all day and want time with DS, not cooking. And once I'm doing a meal I'll do it several times after that and have to force myself to do something else.
We have a new, never tried before meal AT LEAST once a fortnight, if not once a week, and often that becomes a new favourite and is done every week for a couple of months!
Wow, that was an essay, hth!
PLEASE send me the recipe! I have just started a new thread today asking for Aubergine recipes - have a look :D:
All this talk about Sunday roast that some of you still have makes me want to get into doing something like that regular. Its such a lovely tradition. So much 'love' in a proper meal like that. We have just recently stopped doing regular takeaway nights, so perhaps we should exchange it for a good roast dinner - i know its more work than takeaway, but just as enjoyable - if not more so!
I've already replied to it, Salsa!
It's not really a lot of work in a roast - I like to do lamb in the slow cooker and then it's just a matter of veges and gravy.:
I make gravy from the meat juices while the meat is resting and the veges are pretty simple too.
Once the boys are older they can do more food prep - they're already very enthusiastic helpers and Yasin is allowed to stir the gravy while I'm standing beside him.
We dont have a slow cooker, but I see lots of people in Oz seem to use them. I mentioned it to DH but hes reluctant to get one. But in my head it must cook meat that justs tender and juicy -is that right? And can you do batches?
You must convert your DH!!!
Slow cookers/crock pots are the bestest!!
The meat is so yummy and tender and they're a great money saver because they work best with cheaper cuts of meat. We're having lamb shanks tonight - $4 a kg.
They're also great for Mums and working people because you can put your meal on in the morning and then at the end of the day/witching hour you don't need to worry about.
They're good for the environment too because they use as much power as a lighbulb compared to an oven that is very power intensive.
I usually cook enough for a meal for now and a meal for the freezer but my SC is large enough to fit a meal for now and 3 meals for the freezer. I have a big one because they last for years (no moving parts) and one day I'll have teenage boys on my hands with teenage boy appetites.
Hmm, I too will have teenage boys oneday...maybe I will buy one sneaky and then just make something in it and surprise him. Hopefully it will be wonderful and then DH will wonder what his attitude towards them was all about?!
I dont know anyone in NZ who has or uses one, they seem so 1970`s to us.
I might go to the slow cooker threads and get some recommendations on brands.
We eat very differently to the way our parents fed us so it's been a bit of a challenge. As children DH and I were fed the basic meat and 3 veg with something different thrown in only once or twice a week. We've turned that around and eat a huge variety of foods and only have a traditional meat and 3 veg about once a week.
We don't eat red meat so I am very conscious of providing enough different sources of protein... so if we have chicken one night I wouldn't offer bird protein the next night... I'd make tofu (in a stir fry) and then the next night I'd offer fish... and then I'd maybe go for an egg dish... then back to chicken or turkey... then a tempeh dish (soya protein) then a different kind of fish (if it was fresh water earlier in the week i'd go for an deep sea fish like tuna). We also eat seasonal... it's cheaper and healthier.
I think variety is extremely important. Sometimes we get into "ruts" but my kids aren't fussy and it's relatively easy to get out of a rut by grabbing one of my favourite cookey books.
:
please Please Help Me Out I Only Ever Use A Jar!!!!! If There Is Another Way Please Tell Me Or Pm Me With Them
I've started a new thread for trying to break the jar habit...
we tend to go in waves, we'll have something that we really like probably once a week, and then cause we have it too much we'll get sick of it, and not have it for months.
Although spag bol appears at least weekly, I make a huge pot of sauce and freeze it in meal sizes and then i just have to cook pasta and reheat the sauce, so its a quick and easy meal. Steak and veg also appears quite often, and in summer we have a lot of bbq's
Yes I have started to use those Maggi flavour bases... Love the beef stroganoff. Want to try it with beef mince.:
I also do spagetti bolagnaise every few weeks, its easy and goes a long way.