What are meals like in your house?

[nomorespaghetti]

I’m being nosey and looking for inspiration.

I feel like I spend my whole life cooking at the moment. It’s me, DH, and two DC (2 & 4). DH has IBD and can’t eat meat, and the 2 year old is a right fussy sod, so we usually eat different things to the kids (except pizza!) We eat with them half the week, after they’ve gone to bed there other half. Me and DH have a takeaway once a week, we usually have a family lunch out once a week.

Over the last couple of weeks DH and I have had (for dinner) aubergine curry, lentil veggie chilli, roast veg quesadillas, veggie lasagna, tomato & mozzarella risotto, veggie burger and chips, pizza (usual homemade)... we mostly just have these things on rotation. I like them all but I need new ideas really, and I struggle to find veggie recipes sometimes.

Lunch for me is usually a sandwich... egg, cheese, fish finger, tuna... breakfast porridge or toast.

I’m really interested in what other people eat!

We've had:
Home made pizza, tomato base, mozerello, Parma ham, garlic, onions and mushrooms.
Sausage, bacon, egg, tomatoes, mushrooms.
Home made leek, broccoli, and potato soup with home made crutons, cheese and bacon topping along with home made bread.
Home made shepherds pie.
Smoked fish with peas and dauphin Waugh (?) potatoes.

Dh cooks it all. I just grow the herbs he needs.

This week we’ve had porridge, cereal or toast for breakfast for dcs. Dh and I usually only have coffee.
Lunches have been soup, omelettes, Pitta or sandwiches.
Dinners have been jerk chicken with rice and greens
Chicken noodle stir fry
Pasta with salmon, green beans and peas.
Lamb chops, mash and veg

Other dinners we all eat are
Curry and rice
Home made chicken or beef burgers
Fish pie
Shepherds pie
Various casseroles/stews
Fish tacos is a kids favourite
Veggie pasta dishes
Home made naans with veg or chick pea curry

Ottolenghi does amazing veggie food - lots of his recipes are online on the guardian. Also mught be worth checking out the vegetarian “Roasting Tin” cookbook

Complete cooking rut also between children/work/life finding the time some great suggestions on here thanks! I recently got the what mummy makes cook book and it’s been great even the fussy child will eat most of the stuff Iv made!! The recipes take no more than half an hour and we are all eating the same (bonus) we aren’t veggie but I’m sure there are a good few veggie recipes and a meat substitute could be easily used in others. Might not be as fancy as some of the stuff on here but has certainly helped in this house getting us all eating the same thing which makes life much easier!

This week we've had
home made lamb and veg soup
oven baked sweet chilli salmon with roasted mediterranean veg
pizza
slow cooker chicken casserole with roast potatoes
sausages with oven wedges and roasted red onion

Recipes that would work for you that really worked for our whole family inc kids of that age

Oh She Glows creamy curry
Oh she glows vegetarian curry

In fact anything from her first book is straightforward and fun. You could also add shredded roast chicken to both of those after it was cooked if you and the kids wanted it.

Ina garten’s baked risotto is an absolute life saver - you can put frozen peas and chopped fine asparagus in at the end.

‘Home style’ potatoes - chop them fine and bung them in oven for 20 mins while you sauté chopped onions and peppers and maybe even mushrooms or fine green beans. When the potatoes (generally about 1-2cm square pieces) are done, add to the sautéed veg and cook for just a bit more till it’s all squashy. Serve with scrambled egg (it’s a very American brunch).

Veggie burritos - sweet potato, refried black beans, avocado, lettuce, tomato, possibly sweet corn, rice of any kind, all in a wrap. Great for picky people.

Red lentil dal disappears in this house and I hide butternut squash in it. Some recipes call for lots of different spices but when the kids were little I just used a tablespoon of tesco mild curry powder as needed to get it done.

Gwyneth Paltrow’s book It’s All Good is bafflingly one of the greatest cookbooks ever and has amazing chopped salad and soup recipes. Also good kids food (very healthy!)

Finally, maybe the green roasting tin might be a good book for your family?

Sorry the second oh she glows recommendation is meant to be CHILI! Doh.

Thank you so much for the suggestions and helpful comments, this is brilliant! And the cookbook suggestions, might ask for some for my birthday. I do quite like cooking, and I like the things I make, but it’s just the neverendingness of it at the moment! Especially cooking separately for the kids. The 4 year old is a pretty good eater, but the 2 year old is a nightmare. Tonight I did them sausage, roasted sweet potato, carrots and sweetcorn... and he didn’t touch any of it, just licked some ketchup off the end of a sausage! I’m not making it a big deal, and I’m offering healthy stuff and not pandering to him, but the waste drives me crazy. I’m sure he’ll grow out of it one day

fantasmasgoria1 DH did used to do a couple of our dinners a week, pre-lockdown (he’s a bit hit and miss with cooking, but can follow a recipe), but we’ve fallen into me always doing it. To be fair he baths the kids so that I can crack on with cooking, and then he does the clean up afterwards, which is my least favourite job! But I think he could do to practice in the kitchen a bit more.

PP mentioned brinner- I love brinner! I think that’s tomorrow night sorted at least, the kids might even have a go at that

Recently had:
Chicken kiev
Fish cakes & parsley sauce
Salmon and cous cous
Spag bol
Pasta bake (chicken & sweetcorn)
Fish finger sandwich & chips
Pie, mash and veg
Tuna, peas, bacon & rice - sounds odd but its fab! easy and quick too
Gammon & egg, spuds & veg
Chicken, chorizo tortellini
Macaroni cheese
Pizza
Jacet potatoes, ham, cheese & beans
Sweet spuds, butternut squash and sausages
Chicken thighs, chorizo, mushrooms and peppers

We have corn on the cob and mushrooms a lot too, cooked on bbq. Am lucky hubby a foodie and happy to cook.

Try these veggie burritos:

Roast chickpeas, garlic, broccoli and peppers
Black beans
Avocado
Tomato salsa
Cheese
Hot sauce

In a wrap! Soooooo good

Very veggie lentil bake, looks a bit weird but tastes so yummy.
River cottage mushroom pate is easy and really good.

This week has been:

Thai curry with prawns and bok choi with brown rice
Grilled chicken with roasted potatoes, carrots, sweet potato and Brussel sprouts
Minestrone
Mac & cheese (lazy!)
Barramundi, pineapple salsa, coconut rice, roasted carrots
Mandarin chicken

Greek salad
Chicken and spinach curry with rice
Tortillas stuffed with chilli, rice and vegetables and baked in the oven covered in tomato and cheese
Pasta with Mediterranean veg with a garlic and cream sauce

Veggie 30+ years here just me though so I struggle for motivation a lot of the time and tend to prefer easy/quick meals, also as I can't stand for long periods that affects what I cook now too

Typical meals I cook are:

Stir fries - vary the veg week to week so as not to get in a rut

veggies that I like in my stir fries are peppers, mushrooms, tender stem broccoli, mange tout, baby corn, thinly sliced carrot, Bok Choi, kale, bean sprouts, bamboo shoots, water chestnuts

You can use ready made sauces but it's actually really quick and easy to make your own as long as you have in honey, garlic, ginger, soy sauce and a variety of spices and even things like lemon juice (I use lemon juice a lot as I'm an earl grey drinker so I buy the bottled stuff it keeps fine for absolute ages) Tons of recipes online I always have peanut butter in so I can make satay style sauce. Sweet chilli sauce is a really useful store cupboard ingredient too.

Serve with rice, noodles or Cous cous - again dead easy to cook "from scratch" but if it's easier for you then you can get the quick cook versions of rice/noodles, cous cous is so easy it's ridiculous!

pasta - I prefer fresh simply as it's so quick to cook! Again I vary the exact dishes, sometimes it's pesto pasta, sometimes it's a cheese sauce (usually if I have a load of milk to use up!), sometimes a bake in the oven with a tomato based sauce. Always with some veggies which ones depends on how I'm cooking it and what sauce I'm having with it. Favourite veggies with pasta are olives, sundried tomatoes, capers, peppers, mushrooms, broccoli, sweet corn, carrots, peas.

Cheats "risotto" - discovered the delight of giant cous cous which is super easy to make into risotto style dishes far more easily than rice in my opinion and just as tasty.

I make a mushroom flavour one by sautéing some fresh diced mushrooms with garlic and frozen diced onion, then add the giant cous cous and a pinch of dried tarragon to the pan and enough stock as per how much cous cous you're making, but I would say err towards less than more as it's easier to add liquid. When the dish is almost finished add a "half" tin of creamed mushrooms stir that in and keep cooking until that's heated through, serve in a bowl, with a salad or garlic bread as you wish.

Casseroles - love these as they take very little "standing time" but the flavours develop while cooking. Again you can use ready made sauces if you want, but again it's very easy to make your own or simply use stock and herbs/spices.

My "go to" is a veggie sausage and bean casserole. I like Linda McCartney original sausages for this as they have a good meaty texture and hold their shape well.

For 3-4 servings I brown off 6 veggie sausages with diced onion, while that's doing in the casserole dish put half a tin each of baked beans, drained butter beans, and chopped tomatoes, half a teaspoon each of dried thyme and rosemary and a generous teaspoon of mustard (I prefer a good whole grain one) and a dash of hendos relish, mix those through then add the sausage and onions and make sure they're submerged in the casserole mix. When it's near end of cooking (though this is not a precise thing in my oven at around 200°c I cook for 45-60 mins) sprinkle a small packet of Saxo stuffing across the top of the casserole - this creates a sort of herb crust - And cook for a further 10-15 mins. Serve with your choice of potato type (I like mash or roast myself) or inside a large Yorkshire pudding or with simple bread and butter. Freezes well too but omit the stuffing crust if freezing and do that stage when reheating (I freeze in foil trays so it's dead easy to pop out freezer night before into fridge for defrosting and straight in oven for reheating. I don't have a microwave)

"Chicken" style casserole - I use quorn chicken pieces. Brown off the pieces with onion and garlic. In the casserole dish sliced carrots, chopped broccoli, make up some stock and then add/mix into the stock teaspoon of mustard, some marmite, half teaspoon each rosemary and tarragon. Pop the "chicken" pieces etc in the casserole dish, pour over the stock mixture and cook for about an hour at 200°c . Again freezes beautifully. Can serve as per sausage casserole but also goes really nice in a bowl over rice or cous cous.

egg dishes - omelette or frittata are the obvious ones. I actually like baked eggs! Again mainly due to the lack of having to stand and cook! Dead easy! Either use wee ramekins and bake just the eggs and serve as a light lunch/breakfast item or bake them in upturned portobello mushrooms, add a pinch of salt and tarragon usually about 15 mins is plenty but make sure the whites of the eggs are cooked I like a yolky egg if you don't cook a bit longer, or in a baked egg dish - there are loads! Generally you can just make a sort of Huevos rancheros or Shakshouka but in the oven, I use a lid of a casserole dish, fry off sliced peppers, garlic, onion, diced tomatoes or use tinned chopped tomatoes, add the mixture to the dish I'm cooking in, make little "holes" in the mix and break the eggs into those, season and cook again roughly 15 mins but maybe longer depending size of eggs and how you like the yolk.

Serve with toast, garlic bread or crusty roll

Fry up - this is mainly as I've recently discovered delicious vegetarian square sausage and black pudding! I also have veggie bacon, eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms and tattie scones - washed down with a mug of tea!

roast dinner - I like nut cutlets so have them instead of meat though there are loads of other things you can have instead of meat BUT I'm thinking this option could mean you could have meat when your other half doesn't? You could just cook a wee chicken breast in foil or treat yourself to a steak? Then all the usual trimmings - again I cheat! So I have frozen roast potatoes, yorkies, parsnips, stuffing balls made with saxo stuffing, veggie gravy and maybe cranberry sauce too.

freezer to oven - the height of laziness! So some kind of veggie frozen thing like the aforementioned nut cutlets, or veggie grills or sausages or pastry pie (I love Linda McCartney's deep dish country pies the pastry is gorgeous!) or tartlets - you get the idea - just with chips and some kind of tinned veg beans/peas (preferably mushy with loads of vinegar or mint sauce)/sweet corn job done!

Pizza - I buy a cheese and tomato pizza and then add my own extra toppings depending what needs used up!

mushroom stroganoff - I use this bbc food recipe

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/mushroom-stroganoff

Except I use more paprika (combo of normal and smoked), less onion and if I have plain yoghurt in and no sour cream I find that works fine too.

soup - I make a soup probably every other week in the winter it's a good way of using up past their best veggies whether fresh or even a bit left in a tin you have hanging in the fridge. Super easy, I use frozen diced onion - way easier than fresh!

So, fry off onion, sometimes also garlic, celery if I have it in, spring onions if I have them in, whatever veg is going in if it's type that benefits from frying (eg peppers) that gets thrown in too. Then I usually add diced carrots, any other veg that's going in, frozen spinach if I have it in is nice too, add stock, whatever herbs I fancy cook until the veg is all soft, I have to leave it to cool as my blender can't hack hot liquids, then I blitz it and freeze. Simply put out the freezer the night before I'm gonna eat it, reheat and serve with bread etc as standard for lunches or sometimes to make it an evening meal I'll have it with sandwiches or chips dipped in (trust me! It's a Scots thing I think but yum !)

I've created my own "recipe book" on the phone on the notes app.

Created a "food and recipes" folder and have a separate "note" page for each ingredient I use a lot so I'm not doing the same recipes every time.

So eg I have a page for eggs that contains the recipes/notes I know I like

"https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/egg-fried-rice

eggs in mushrooms if I have portobello in

French toast"

It even contains notes on recipes I have tried and DIDN'T like so I don't forget!

I also meal plan (this was essential at start of lockdown as it was really hard to get smaller options in the grocery deliveries eg I'd order 6 eggs and end up with 12 or huge packs of mushrooms or fruit that I then needed to use up) so I use the notes app again and do a wee table on it each week and plan according to use by dates and what I know needs using up in the way of fresh fruit and veg.

Thanks to the "frugal foodies" threads I learnt lots of new recipes inc how ridiculously easy it is to make your own flatbreads with just 2 ingredients - plain flour and plain yoghurt! Takes mins! and far tastier than shop bought. You can of course add flavourings if you wish too, eg garlic, coriander, rosemary, cheese... so so easy.

Hope you find a way out of your rut op

I'm a single parent. This week I have made -

Lamb koftas with salad, flatbreads and dips
Thai salmon fish cakes with coconut rice
Chicken and mushroom pasta with a parmesan and cream sauce

Doing a pasta bake tonight as Friday is my lazy night. Next week I'm planning

Lasagne
Salmon with veg and garlic potatoes
Mac and cheese
Chicken casserole

7yo DS doesn't like fish so I commit the MN cardinal sin and cook different meals for us sometimes. I love fish and I'd never get to eat it otherwise! So I do him sausage and mash or a pasta dish when I have fish.

Seconding the Oh She Glows and HFW Veg books, I go through phases where I’ll get my books down and do a new recipe a week and then get back in a rut for a while.

I’m vegan, DD is “particular”, DH and DS will generally eat anything (although DS claims not to like some of the foods DD does like which is annoying but he’s a benign child who will usually just eat what’s in front of him!)

There’s also a good long running meal planning thread and a few of us on it are veg which might help inspire you?

This week we’ve had:
Japanese Katsu curry with broccoli and tofu (DD had clam linguini)
Warm cannellini bean and Portobello salad for DS and I, DH and DD had bacon mac’n’cheese and green beans
Thai sweet potato soup and bagels

Fridays is always frozen food for D.C. (pizza/fish fingers and chips/peas) on their request but once in a while we’ll make our own pizzas altogether. I sometimes dig out a recipe that neither child would have or usually DH and will have a mound of roasted veggies with tahini and lemon sauce or we’ll order a take away

We also have a lot of pasta, risotto, curries of various descriptions, tray bakes, stews, soups and salads but it can be a pain catering for us all. I’d say quarter of the time we eat the same thing, a quarter of the time DD has what we’re having but deconstructed, quarter of the time the three of us will have one thing and DD will get something simple and easy within her parameters that takes 2mins to cobble together (she’s a fan of chickpea straight from the can, frozen green beans defrosted and a variety of raw veg for example so really does take 2mins), 1 night a week or fortnight they’ll have something like roast chicken or a steak and I’ll sort myself out

Lunches bore the shit out of me

We are pretty carnivorous in our house, but my best mate is vegetarian and comes over regularly and we usually have:

Roast veg lasagne
Spinach and ricotta cannelloni
Veggie curry - sometimes with Quarndon
Veggie sausage casserole - I use a packet mix and thrown in peppers, onions, mushrooms and courgette, plus a small tin of drained baby potatoes at the end and serve with crusty bread

This week we had baked cheese with various bits for dipping - celery, soft breadsticks, battered onion rings and sweetcorn fritters.

Oh and Yotam Ottolenghi does some great veggie recipes, this is our favourite:

www.google.com/amp/s/www.foodandwine.com/recipes/cauliflower-and-cumin-fritters%3famp=true

I realised the other evening that I had no mince for stuffed peppers so used puy lentils instead. I cooked up the filling with onion, carrot, stock cube, herbs and Worcester sauce and then stirred in some cheese. Filled the peppers, more cheese on top, baked in oven. Dead easy and tasty.

Thanks so much everyone. What a helpful place.

I love the idea of sausage and bean casserole. Even the kids might go for that!

I’ve written a list of things to try and I’m going to do one new meal a week feel quite excited 😂 hopefully it’ll get me out of the rut a bit!

This week:

Rogan jhost curry made with lamb shoulder rice paratras spinach dhal

Freezer shite

Beef anchovy thyme casserole (nigella),
Mash & veg mash was frozen!

Roast chicken and jacket pots peas and real gravy

6 yr old had pasta with butter and Parmesan with cucumber 😳 for 5 days

I am unbelievably lucky as cooking is DH favourite hobby so we have delicious meals. Some of his staples are;

Butter chicken curry
Grilled halloumi and orzo salad
Mushroom risotto
Turkey enchiladas
Broccoli cheddar soup
Cacio y pepe
Carbonara
Shephards pie
KFC - Korean Fried Chicken
Fish tacos

We love our pizza stone so highly recommend having one for homemade pizza!

DD is milk intolerant vegetarian. Everyone else in family is a meat eater.
This week we've had

sweet potato and lentil veggie shepherd's pie
Cod and chorizo stew (DD had left over shepherd's pie)
Sausage and mash (DD had veggie sausages)
Baked potatoes (with tuna mayo or egg mayo)
veggie curry
fish finger sandwiches with wedges (dd had veggie sausage sandwich)
Tonight is a Chinese!