How to be more exciting in the kitchen?

[boringisasboringdoes]

Looking for advice but lighthearted replies welcome too:

I'm having a mid-life food crisis...not really asking for recipes, more for ideas how to change my thinking..

To give context and not drip feed: I can spend half an hour after work cooking or casserole something for an hour. DH shops and buys one each of mince, chicken, fish etc. I cook in date order as I don't like waste. The Venn diagram centre of vegetables appreciated in our house contains mostly broccoli, carrots and salad. I tried a slow cooker for a while but can't manage it on work days.

I can actually cook but am lazy/often stressed. I'm not averse to a sauce in a jar. I even have a tesco parsley and a mint growing on my windowsill but their function is to look pretty. DH works long hours so his usually gets plated up which makes everything dry and terrible anyway but he does his bit at the weekend.

Realise am lucky to have choice/transport/money for food these days so please don't YABU me..

You've got the solid components and the veg selection works well for many dishes.

So it seems that the carbs and seasoning are what will drive it.

Fish could give you, smoked haddock risotto; a tomato based french soup with bread, a creamy bisque, an Indian spiced fillet with rice

Chicken could give you, garlic kiev with mash; teriyaki chicken with rice; chicken curry with rice; a chicken noodle soup

Then follow on from the general theme.

The other idea is pick a different country and cook their dishes that use your usual meats.

Prepare the slow cooker the day before and leave in the fridge then low - or get a plug timer

Or one of those fancy steam things that cook a stew in 20 mins

I signed up to simply cook. They give you the seasonings and a recipe card - each set costs around £2.50 so about the same as a ready sauce. It helps me vary my cooking and try out new things without too much effort.

Mince......keema curry, meatballs, lasagne

Fish.....with pesto, battered, cheese sauce

Chicken......fajitas, chicken tikka, with butter and sage

Pasta......broccoli and pesto, tomato and mozzarella, bacon and tomato

Rice.....spicy chicken rice, risotto,

Thanks for replying
I can cook most of those things but I don't think I've ever made or had a keema curry. The example of sage is a good one as it just wouldn't enter my head to use sage but I do like it.

I like the sound of simply cook a lot as that takes care of the thinking bit

One of my friends did one of the other boxed deliveries with all the ingredients for a bit but they have a porch but the box would be outside our front door all day!

Also soup is a good suggestion I haven't made it from scratch for ages

Do you like minestrone? Sounds uninspiring but real Tuscan minestrone in the winter is food from the gods. If you want I can give you the recipe from my gran.

Also, potato gratin is a good alternative to usual potatoes.

I like the idea to have dishes from different countries each evening.

I tear recipes I like the look of out of newspapers, magazines, supermarket free magazines & recipe leaflets. I also use recipe books: Jamie’s 5 ingredients & 30 minute meals are both good for quick & easy. My H prefers to find ideas on the internet e.g by searching “chicken recipes”.

We plan meals for the week and shop for that rather than base meals around the shopping which is what you are doing.

I probably do about 50-50 old favourites and new recipes in a week, more likely to try the new stuff at weekends when I have the time and energy to experiment. New recipes may or may not make the future favourites list.

I don’t follow recipes slavishly and am not averse to using shortcuts or substituting expensive or faffy components or bits I don’t like for whatever I have in or can easily get.

You need to be prepared for some failures if you genuinely want to be more experimental.

I would love to hear your gran's recipe if it's not too much trouble thanks @MonnaLisa

I do have Jamie's 5 actually somewhere I think I got it for Xmas, of course it's on a shelf somewhere! I only ever look in recipe books when I've got some female friends coming round for dinner (and that's mostly to find the intersection of veggie/dairy-free/nut-free etc to suit them)

When I was a bored SAHM, I signed up to a service, I think called wooden spoon but it's not going anymore, which sent a shopping list on Monday or maybe Saturday, then a set of recipes for the week.
After a few weeks they got a bit repetitive, but I got several recipes I still do today, and it definitely stretched me. Nothing took too long, it was designed that way, but it got me using different ingredients and techniques. Is there anything like that still around?

I often type an ingredient into bbc food and it gives loadsa recipes out