To ask those who like food and cook from scratch without getting bored what meals do you cook most often, what does a typical week look like and what is your most used cookery book?

[Chi11iFlak3]

I’m bored of meal planning, also how do others who cook from scratch every night plan the week?

Meera Sodha's recipe books are the ones that get most regular use in my house. Madhur Jaffrey's Curry Simple too. I also follow quite a few Instagram accounts such as Karan Cooks (Sri Lankan and Indian food), Xien's Scran (Chinese diaspora) and Danilo Cortellini (Italian) - I find it really helps to watch as well as read the recipe.

We always have batches of Bolognese or chilli in the freezer. Chilli adaptable for serving with rice, making burritos, or doing nachos which is a fun midweek treat for us.

We eat lots of pasta, eg bolognese, puttanesca, broccoli/cream/anchovy/lemon or alla limone/cacio e pepe.

If I cook rice as a side I always do double and then we'll have leftovers the next day, might be egg fried, stir fry, dirty rice, Indian lemon rice with cashews and a handful of frozen peas. I always do extra boiled eggs too, and make "drug eggs" to marinade in the fridge til needed.

I personally love to meal plan. Usually shop on a Friday and plan till the following Thursday.

I never get bored cooking from scratch. The possibilities are endless. I’m not the best cook ever but whenever I go out for food now I always think I could have made it better at home.

This week I’m making:

Slow cooker pulled chicken burritos with guacamole, salsa and cheese.

Spaghetti carbonara

Red lentil, chickpea and spinach Dahl with wholegrain rice

Honey mustard chicken tray bake carrots courgette roast potatoes

Thai mango chicken curry with jasmine rice

• Lots of bibimbap
• Thai curries - massaman or green. Get a good paste and it's super quick/tasty!
• Chicken gyros. Marinate the thighs in rose harissa/yogurt/cumin/lemon/garlic. Finish them in the oven on high. Fill wraps with chips (just oven roasted potatoes roasted in dripping), salad, tomatoes, feta. Quickly pickle cucumber. Serve in wraps. Amazing in the summer with white wine!
• Chinese beef with stewing steak. Loads of recipes online, we do one that leans towards five spice kind of flavours. Serve with rice/noodles. Maybe with Asian style broccoli or cabbage for the veg

Books I have loved

• Persiana/Persiana everyday
• Diana Henry
• Some quite specific Korean ones I can dig out of interested

Probably the main ones. I use recipe books mainly for desserts these days!

We're having meatballs and pasta tonight - I do make the meatballs from scratch but they're fairly simple. Local farm beef mince/egg/breadcrumbs/garlic powder/salt/pepper. Do them in the oven, ready in 15 minutes as I make them small - more like polpette. You could also do this with tuna instead of beef!

sorry error

My meal planning process isn't that interesting tbh and I sometimes use books but, two websites I use a lot are Recipe Tin Eats (not had a bad recipe from her yet) and Swasthi's recipes, lovely Indian food.

https://www.indianhealthyrecipes.com/

https://www.recipetineats.com/

Simply cook rocks!

I have hit a cooking rut at the moment. Usually we eat in a week:
A casserole e.g. lancashire hotpot or beef stew
Pasta with pesto and chicken
Turkey escalopes or chicken Kievs with green beans and broccoli
A roast dinner
Fish from the freezer with mash and veg
Ham, egg and oven chips
A mild curry (so DD can eat it) and rice
Home made fried rice with chicken and veg in
Spaghetti bolognaise
Chilli con carne
Sausage and mash

That's about all I do on repeat at the moment. I am ordinarily an adventurous cook and love cooking spicy / more exciting things but this meets the family's needs at the moment and I don't have to think too hard about doing it after work.

I loathe meal planning with the fire of a thousand suns, so get Hello Fresh 4 nights a week. That just leaves 3 nights to wing it, which usually means:

Night out or takeaway or leftovers
Baked potatoes with various toppings
Pasta eg: carbonara, or orzo with something, or risotto with fridge pickings
DH's chili
Breakfast-for-dinner

Although tonight I have bucked the trend with roasted pork belly strips with chinese spice, courgette, leek, broccoli and edamame.

Edited to add that Diana Henry is a goddess for throw-it-all-in-a-roasting-tin cooks like me. I luffs her.

my favourite easy meals are chicken casserole- but chicken thighs & drumsticks, put in casserole dish with whatever vegetables you fancy (typically red onion, sweet potato & peppers in my case, but I’ve tried loads of different ones), add some good quality chicken stock & a slug of wine, fresh rosemary. Serve with microwave bagged rice and some boiled green vege.

My favourite cook book is Pulse, full of bean / lentil recipes (totally delicious). I love Mary Berry Sunday lunches, Hairy Bikers, and Persian Kitchen too but nowadays I get most of my ideas from YouTube shorts and on here

On an average week I’ll do

• two meals where I cook something big like a casserole or a roast. and we have leftovers another night usually
• two nights where I cook something like bibimbap or ramen
• one night where we have baked potatoes or oven food (fish finger sandwiches etc)
• Friday night is always pizza or beans on toast as we have twenty minutes to eat between activities

We just wing it. Have a decent store cupboard and stocks in the freezer plus buy a good selection of seasonal veg.

Then we usually pull some protein from the freezer - meat or fish and knock something out depending on what we have. Sometimes it might just be an omelette or a stirfry, sometimes fajitas or koftas or a stew or chilli. Sometimes its something more exotic.
Its quite fun not planning.

RecipeTinEats is my go to and every night this week is one of her recipes!

This week it's:
Pork Tenderloin on a bed of King Edwards Potatoes and tomatoes (olive oil, lemon, garlic and herb dressing).
Rump Steak Stirfry with her Charlie Sauce
Firecracker Beef with Rice
Moroccan Stuffed Aubergine
Moroccan Lamb Meatballs

Her recipes tend to be for the right amount of people and scale-able as well 😀She does flavours impossibly well.

I batch cook. I really like feeding everyone well. I make a big batch of tomato sauce and use this as a base for bolognaise / curry / pasta bake. I also make root veg mash and we’d have that in a shepherd pie with sausage and mash or roast chicken.

I also cook with my kids. Tomorrow DD and I will make chicken parmigiana (essentially) giant chicken nuggets. And tomato mascarpone sauce. I made chicken Alfredo with DS as he saw it on insta and asked to make it! We also make pizza, chicken nuggets etc.

I freeze all the above so I can have days off cooking.

This week we have had:
a beef mince curry
Shakshuka with black beans and feta
Chicken Karahi curry
Beef mince curry again
Prawn and Chorizo Paella
Mozzarella and Spinach potato Tortilla
Beef or Chicken burgers will all the things, chips and sprouted broccoli.

I mostly get my recipies online.
if I find one I really like and we use a lot I write it in my recipes notebook.

@Katemax82 my favourites are the rustic pasta, Vietnamese sticky pork and beef stroganoff . My H loves em , I like the fact I can just buy fresh on the day and do what I actually fancy that day - the house always smells amazing too when I do them . I try to do 2 a week

Favourite easy meals that we never seem to tire of:
broccoli chilli garlic and pine nut pasta
sausage and butter bean stew
toasted red pepper, n’duja, and burrata with ciabatta
sweet potato, red pepper red onions chorizo tray baked topped with a fried egg
steak, home made chips chopped salad
lamb chops chopped salad with feta and hummus
korean mince with rice.
I get bored of the same old things - no one in the family eats chicken anymore and we are only really eating meat on nights when we’re in a hurry. Love Diana Henry - she’s practical and has a great palate -(I like almost everything I make from her books)

To be honest our meal plan is pretty repetitive. I don’t have the energy to be more creative. We always have a roast on Sunday unless we are busy and I always pick a pasta dish. I try to do fish once a week too. One night is our late office night so must be quick (always pizza). That doesn’t leave a lot of nights

I've never understood meal planning, because the meal is only ever going to be as tasty as its ingredients. And if the ingredients aren't in season or are super expensive, then it all goes out the window.

So, I shop first, plan second. I see what looks good, what's in season, what's on special offer (to eat now or freeze for later). I start with vegetables, then add a protein and that generally dictates which carb I make. I always have chicken and beef and ground pork in the freezer. I have a well stocked spice rack and pantry with grains, pulses, pastas and tinned tomatoes and vegetables. I have lots of condiments.

It's not that difficult, for me, but I appreciate I have the time to do this. I shop once a week, cook three-four times a week (always make extra for lunches the next day), get take out once a week, have omelettes/sandwiches/quiches for lunch at the weekends because life is hectic - and always have tonnes of fruit and a fairly decent amount of junk food (ice cream, tortilla chips, etc).

Every week I sit down to meal plan and my mind goes totally blank and I forget every meal I have ever made. So I rarely make the same thing twice and I just can’t remember anything.
However two current favourites
Salmon pasta - 1 skinless salmon fillet per person in an oven proof pan. Add a punnet of halved cherry toms, small bag spinach, a Boursin, couple of cloves minced garlic, some capers and a tablespoon of chicken powder. Bake for 20 mins, no lid, at 180. Cook some pasta, put a bit of the pasta water in with the salmon and then stir it all together and serve with some Parmesan.

Chicken schwarma - chunk up some chicken thighs, quarter some new potatoes, marinade with sliced red onion, capers, lemon juice, oil and schwarma seasoning. After a bit tip it all onto a baking tray and oven for 45 mins. Serve with tzatziki and salad.

I like Emily English on Instagram, she has simple recipes that taste nice. Otherwise Jamie Oliver always and forever!

I never meal plan. WFH so for me a 30m walk to the market twice a week or the supermarket is daily exercise I wouldn't otherwise get.

I buy food for lunch and dinner, whatever I fancy and the kids will eat. We eat whatever looks nice plus spaghetti Bolognese once a week and a roast on Sunday.

I really don't see how you could buy breakfasts plus 14 meals in one go at one shop and get nice fresh food without ten times the mental effort of shopping more frequently.

Days of the week are usually the same, with variations. This week it was:

Mondays--veggie, usually a stir fry (30 min black pepper tofu)
Tuesdays--tacos, a rotation of fish, beef, chicken, veggie, turkey mince (this week chicken)
Wednesdays--pasta, some combo of greens/pancetta/sausage/beans with loads of garlic and chilli pepper (this week borlotti beans, tomatoes, kale)
Thursdays--fish (last week smoked haddock on a bed of lentils and chard)
Fridays--a piece of meat with potatoes and greens (last week chicken thighs on the grill)
Saturday--curry (last week sweet potato dahl)
Sunday--sometimes another pasta; generally we go to the farmers market so might pick up something interesting or a chicken for a roast.

If I'm out, the rest of the family will get a takeaway (usually burgers).

I rarely fancy what's in cookbooks although I have a lot of them! I do get recipes online.

The 1st Prashad cookbook is brilliant. Get a spice tin and curries are an easy, nutritious meal. We have an instant pot which makes cooking pulses and beans quick. And delicious.

Sunday Roast dinner.
Mon left over chicken, salad new potatoes.
Tues pasta, sauce garlic bread
Wed Prawn Stir Fry
Thurs oven pizza, sides
Friday chilli con carne
Sat Takeaway
Changes slightly every week but this is a good idea of my week.

Monday, Saturday curry leftovers ( home made) Tuesday leftovers from Sunday dinner, usually pasta or rice based. Wednesday varies, tonight it's spaghetti bol. Thursday alternates, sausages or fishfinger sandwiches. Friday whatever we fancy, this week it's fish and chips. Saturday curry or chilli. Sunday most weeks a roast.

Sunday - Roast
Monday Jacket potato and beans
Tuesday - Jambalaya
Wednesday - Spag Bol
Thursday - fajitas
Friday - Fish and chips
Saturday - homemade burgers, salad and corn cobs, halloumi

Extra in the rotation:
Chicken Alfredo
Chicken, bacon and Leak pie
Sausage and mash
Beef tacos
Lasagne
Chicken, chickpea and pepper curry
Pizza and chips

Pretty much eat those 13 meals on repeat!