Do you ever get into a cooking rut?
Same dishes week after week?
We've definitely been in need of a dinner-makeover at my house during the past couple months.
So off I went to the library and came home with a stack of what I had hoped to be inspiration.
Yes, as you can tell, these were pretty much quick & easy cookbooks. I still have not mastered the art of working full-time, staying on top of all the laundry and housework, AND having a wonderful full-course meal on the table by 6:00 PM.
I tried it for awhile when we first got married, but I never got out of the kitchen until 8:30 or 9 PM, and that put me on the verge of going crazy. What I've realized though is that pre-planning is half the battle. If I know ahead of time what I'm going to make for dinner, than I can have the meat already thawed out and proper ingredients on hand so I don't have to make last-minute dashes to the store when i realize mid-recipe that I'm short on tomatoes, beans or broth.
"Express Lane Meals" by Rachael Ray was the biggest disappointment to me. I've perused several of her cookbooks and I don't think I've ever actually tried any of her recipe. They all have really strange ingredients, and don't seem economical or appetizing. Skip that.
I enjoyed the "Hungry Girl" cookbooks and made a few good things from those. I like "real" ingredients though (not liquid egg substitute and stuff like that), so I used her recipes as a guideline and just tweaked whatever I made.
I like tweaking.
T-w-e-a-k-i-n-g.
Tweaking.
Ahem.
Then there is always the trusty Internet, filled with creative recipe, absolute disasters, and some real winners! Some of of my current favorites are:
Each of these recipes I have altered to suit our personal tastes. More or less sauce, rice noddles instead of pasta, differently seasoned meat, etc. I use the recipes like a canvas and take my own set of colors to spice it up! Cooking is often my outlet for creativity these days.
Have you tried anything new lately?
Happy Cooking ~
2 comments:
I feel like I'm always in a rut!! ;) The crockpot is your best friend though.. when I was working I hated coming home and having to cook. Plus I'm 30 minutes from town. Anyway, I figured it was worth getting up a little earlier in the morning, and throwing something in there. And coming home to a hot meal!
I've been in a rut lately - but my husband keeps request the same things. I tried Tortilla Soup for the first time last week and he LOVED it. It was good, but still needs a little more tweaking. ;)
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