Need New Dinner Ideas

cnovak1084

I feel like I'm stuck in a food rut. I seem to rotate the same six things for dinner. I need a little inspiration. What are your favorite dinners to make? My family has no food allergies and we are pretty adventurous eaters so all suggestions are welcome. TIA!

MikePfirrman

I'd start with how you're finding and storing recipes. I like to make a lot of recipes from online. To me, it's better than cookbooks because it opens up so many more possibilities. But I've also cooked for 40 plus years (I'm 55 and literally started making family meals at age 9 for a family of 8), so I have a lot of old standbys and family favorites I've developed over the years.

I absolutly LOVE Copymethat. You can copy recipes you find on the internet with a click of a button -- it's a Chrome extension, so you have to be using Chrome as your browser. But you can create a virtual cookbook combining what you find online with your own favorites.

I pick like one or two recipes a week that I want to try, click and add them to my collection. If I don't like them after I make them, they're deleted. It also allows you to see what others have created in the Community and if you like someone's style, you can follow them, much like Spotify or Pandora.

My daughter, the vegetarian (she's trending toward pescatarian without the dairy) is home with us sheltering in place, so this week I'm doing four new recipes. Feeling adventurous.

swirlybee

I use the thread called "What do your meals look like (show me pictures)" to see what other people are cooking and use that for inspiration. Sometimes they'll post a recipe or I'll just google the recipe.

amy19355

cnovak1084 wrote: »

I feel like I'm stuck in a food rut. I seem to rotate the same six things for dinner. I need a little inspiration. What are your favorite dinners to make? My family has no food allergies and we are pretty adventurous eaters so all suggestions are welcome. TIA!

Look at substitutions for variation. So, for example, added sugars can come from different sources - not just white refined granules, fruit, jams, jellies, syrups can replace them and add interesting flavors.

I haven't met many foods that don't respond well to being combined with coconut milk and curry.

One of the best little tricks I have is to add a handful of crushed nuts to a dish. Macadamias with a curried coconut sauce , pine nuts or walnuts with rosemary and white beans, hazelnuts with pinto beans.

GrumpySparkles

cnovak1084 wrote: »

I feel like I'm stuck in a food rut. I seem to rotate the same six things for dinner. I need a little inspiration. What are your favorite dinners to make? My family has no food allergies and we are pretty adventurous eaters so all suggestions are welcome. TIA!

What do you usually cook?