“What shall I cook for dinner?” This is a question/complaint that women (and men) around the world must ask daily. I think we probably all have our favourites that we fall back on time and time again – dishes that are easy to cook that are top of mind when we are at the supermarket, or standing in front of the fridge at dinnertime. I certainly know I do. These days, I seem to have a staple set of chicken dishes (including Thai stir-fry, couple of different Thai curries, and a Moroccan-inspired quickie, as well as a few others), a couple of staple lamb dishes (lamb shanks in winter, a Moroccan tagine, and lamb rumps), roast beef or grilled steak, salmon, and several pasta dishes, some of which I can manage to get my husband to eat, some of which are vegetarian. There will be others I can’t think of at the moment. And of course, my famous fried rice – though I make that less frequently, simply because I often forget to buy limes.
There are others that I add occasionally. I throw in fish occasionally, but it is something I wish I could cook better. Every so often I introduce a new dish to my standards. After our Italian sojourn, I added in a pork in milk (maiale al latte). But aside from that, I haven’t added many new dishes recently. Dona talked about this phenomenon in a post recently, noting that she’d tried a new service that delivered recipes and the necessary ingredients, in an effort to add some new dishes to her weekly repertoire.
It got me thinking. Each of us who read her blog – or those who read my blog – must have some favourite, tried-and-true, easy and quick recipes. I’d love to know what your go-to dishes are. I know they would be delicious – I had one of Bridgett’s pasta dishes for dinner last night. Wouldn’t it be an idea to share some of them? What do you think? We could do it here (you could write a guest post for me, with your favourite recipe) as a regular feature, or simply on our/your own blogs. Any takers?
FYI, tonight it’s going to be lamb rumps, with balsamic sauce.
Yes, love this idea! I’m always trying to build my repertoire!
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Also, I’m jealous of how much lamb (and certainly easily and cheaply) you get to enjoy. Where I live that is an expensive treat, and generally imported from NZ (thanks!).
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I love this idea. That said, most of what I end up cooking is what’s-in-the-fridge in a stir fry or on a pizza crust. I’m not so recipe oriented.
Oh, but I have a recipe that isn’t hard and makes me happy…maybe I’ll share that!
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Please do! A recipe that makes you happy sounds great. Let me know if you blog it (and I could put the link up here if you don’t mind).
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P.S. I still make your famous fried rice—probably a couple of times a year, when my brain thinks of it!
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Almost all of our meals are vegetarian, so not sure if they would truly be helpful. Though I’m thinking about making a vegan version of your fried rice next week 🙂
I just started sketching out all the meals for the week at the beginning of the week, something I’ve never done before. I’m very much a “what am I wanting in the moment” type of cook. But I took on some extra work that necessitates having things running smoothly with few trips to the store. So far it’s been pretty freeing to look at a note in the morning and know when I need to start cooking and that I have the ingredients I need on hand.
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Oh yes, I’d love some vegetarian recipes to add to my repertoire. I’m very impressed with your planning. I often change my mind at the last minute, deciding that I don’t feel like eating whatever I’d planned to eat. I’m not sure I could stick to a schedule. In fact, I didn’t cook the lamb rumps last night, and I’m not really in the mood for them tonight. Sigh.
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Dh actually does most of the cooking (erk!)… he started when we were both working and it’s continued. He has a couple of his own specialties — beans with pasta & lentils with rice, carrots & onions, which we generally have once a week. We do chicken breasts baked in the oven & basted with a sauce of lemon juice, olive oil, garlic & herbs, and a similar chicken dish that involves honey, lime juice & garlic.
I also have some favourite “comfort food” recipes which use canned soups, which I know a lot of people disdain, but are so easy-peasy. There’s one recipe I have that uses rice with cream of mushroom & packaged onion soup mix, with either chicken breasts or pork chops — you just throw it all together and into the oven for an hour & a half, and the meat comes out so tender. Another recipe for simple stroganoff which uses hamburger fried with onions and a sauce of cream of mushroom soup mixed with sour cream over egg noodles.
I also love making penne or rigatoni tossed with broccoli, olive oil, sauted garlic and parmesan cheese. We used to eat a lot more pasta dishes/casseroles that are now sadly verboten because of my tomato allergy. 😦 We also have a couple of go-to frozen convenience foods that we use when we’re tired or in a hurry or just feeling lazy. 😉 (stuffed chicken breasts & chicken strips). We recently tried a frozen chicken lasagna (with ricotta cheese & broccoli) that we liked. We’ve also started using our crockpot over the last few months & are really enjoying that, especially for the roasts.
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My husband does most of the cooking, but I do have a few recipes I return to. Pasta with roast pumpkin, Parmesan and sage butter is one I used to cook a lot, and am doing more, now I have a sage plant growing. We also frequently make a roast sweet potato and Persian feta salad (other things may be added, those are the key elements).
And I have a go to sweet as well- lemon drizzle cake is an easy recipe and it reminds me of my childhood home with its lemon tree. I have been making it a lot lately.
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I love this idea! I definitely have some go-to recipes (for those rare times I actually make dinner). I’d love to share!
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This is a good idea. I’m making pot roast tonight — my favorite recipe from the Pioneer Woman. Maybe I will write a post about it (sure will be a change from all the depressing death posts I’ve done lately).
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Love this. Taking note of the directions.
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