Food rut :(

[Marsalimay]

Can anyone offer any advice on how to get out of a food rut?

My breakfast is fine - yogurt, berries, sprinkling of nuts and seeds. Dinner is fine - colourful salad, another sprinkling of seeds, with fish or olives and feta or somesuch.

But tea I just lack inspiration. I want to avoid beige as much as possible and don't want to eat meat more than once a week really. I want to avoid a large or late meal. We cook from scratch unless laziness and lack of inspiration leads to yet another takeaway.

Having a base idea, like we have salad for dinner, would be great.

We tried Hello Fresh for a while, and that was great as we learned about new ingredients like Ketjap, but eventually found their meals repetitive and with too much pasta and meat.

Has anyone here managed to get out of a food rut? How did you do it?

When I’m in a food rut, I try to do a recipe from a different country each night.

A week’s worth of evening meals might be:
Italy - risotto
Spain - Spanish omelette
Mexico - enchiladas
Greece - moussaka
Egypt - falafel
Thailand - pad Thai
Morocco - tagine

I use Simply Cook for new ideas.

I make myself cook recipes, usually fairly easy ones from bbc good food website and based on ingredients that I have in/a cuisine I fancy eg Thai

I have a lot of cookbooks, and I meal plan over a week so when I'm in a rut I choose one of my cookbooks and try and plan the whole week from that book. We try and have two nights meat, two nights fish and three nights veggie as well so that forces me to use recipes I might not otherwise have chosen.

I use Eat Your Books as well to "google" my cookbooks as otherwise I forget what recipes I have for particular things.

We get a weekly fruit & veg box so I am often ending up with vegetables I wouldn't necessarily have chosen, so I search my cookbooks for recipes for those veggies - this often leads to new and interesting dishes to make.

The other option is to decide that you want to have certain "types" of food on certain days. Friday is pizza night, Thursday jacket potatoes, Wednesday is pasta, Tuesday is soup and toastie etc. and then every week you do a different flavour of those base meals. So maybe one thursday you do hot smoked salmon, creme fraiche and dill on a potato with a cucumber-beet salad. The next thursday you do chili con carne on a potato. The following thursday you do cheddar, scallions and bacon. etc etc.

Thank you all for the ideas. I think that the idea of each day having a country or ingredient is going to help, and that'll prompt me to look at my cookery books for new recipes.

Have quit Diet Coke and sugar recently, have lapses, but determined to improve my eating.

Can I just say it's nice to see someone else call it 'breakfast, dinner and tea'!

I’m constantly recommending this book ‘The Green Roasting Tin’ recipes are vegetarian or vegan, quick/easy and so reliable!

Try shopping in your local ethnic/Eastern European food stores instead of the usual supermarkets. I love going in for a nose and often come out with loads of interesting ingredients and so my food world is opened through working out what to do with them. It’s great!

DP is always rooting around in them. Comes out with “interesting” things but not a clue what they are or what they’re for.

I'd really recommend the BBC Good Food Guide books, you can usually find them for a few £ each on eBay. We have the pasta and noodle dishes, chicken dishes, 30 minute suppers, and one pot recipes versions and use them at least twice a week!

I think that trying not to eat so much beige food has made this a bit of a struggle. As a child it was so much easier. We ate a lot of sandwiches!