How do you stay inspired?

[AnyDream]

Disclaimer - my DH was a chef in a former life so I don't cook every single night.

BUT when I used to cook every single night, I had a philosophy of keeping it simple, including lots of veggies in everything (cos that's my core nutritional belief - if you eat lots of veggies everything else will sort itself out) and doing as little work as possible . This means we invested in a deep freezer, I learnt how to do one pot & slow-cooking style meals, and I cook things in batches and freeze.

It also helps if you have a bit of a weekly routine. Simplify, simplify, simplify. It might mean that you have a scratch tea (toasted sammies, eggs on toast, soup, whatever) one night a week - Fri night when everyone is tired is good, Sun night is another good candidate for scratch tea. Often on a Sunday I throw something together that is either slow-cooker, one pot or can be done in the oven on Monday. Then you can freeze half of it or have it again another night later in the week. Nominate a day of the week to be pasta night. In our house it's Wed night so if you make a lot, Thurs can be a brainless reheat of pasta + any other leftovers you have accrued + some extra veg.

The trick with leftovers is to serve them in a different configuration, eg, do some macaroni cheese on the side, or steam different fresh veggies, or add a different sauce, turn it into fritters or cut it up and add sauce or gravy - everyone thinks it's a different dinner LOL. On Fri's DH likes to make pizza (and who's gonna argue with that?) or a risotto. Sat we have a roast (or BBQ in summer), or what I always think of as "party food" (even though it's not) like pizza if we didn't have it on Fri, or tacos, or burritos, or hamburgers, or gourmet style hotdogs... whatever. When you have a week mapped out like that you never have to think too hard about what to make. In summer we do more marinated things on the bbq & grilled veg & fresh salad based things but that often depends on what's available & looks good in the shops. That's my time for experimenting with different spices, salad dressings, etc.

Over time I've also learned what dishes I can make in batches and freeze that the family *always* like - for us this is the comfort food rotation, so I include lots of veg when I'm making it but we usually have steamed veg on the side as well. These include bolognaise (freeze in batches so you only have to cook the pasta), lasagna, shepherd's pie, apricot chicken, tuna mornay, fish pie, meatballs in a tomato sauce, stuffed capsicums. It doesn't matter how many times I cook these things and put them on the table everyone loves it and eats it and never gets bored. Same goes for things like roast chicken drummies, corned beef, cauli cheese. OR maybe we all just have boring tastes LOL.