What do you cook regularly?

[Pippaandpolly]

I am a bit bored of our regular meals:

Lasagne
Chilli con carne
Pasta with various sauces - usually a chilli/tomato one
Omelette
Jacket potato with various toppings
'Healthy' cooked breakfast (as a weekend dinner treat usually!)
Risotto with various additions - often asparagus/bacon/mushroom combos
Fajitas with chicken, peppers etc
Scrambled eggs on toast when I can't be bothered with anything else
Salads of varying description - usually quite interesting rather than just lettuce+toms type
Sausage+mash/Fish-finger sandwiches/other very quick and easy 'kiddy cheat' food as my mother calls it!!
Beef stew
Roast lamb/chicken - I am better at things that can go in the oven for hours and not so good at chicken of the traditional Sunday roast style (plus there are only two of us so things like this and stew tend to come out for dinner parties rather than just a regular supper)
Stir-fries (though I always use a packet sauce which I don't like doing so don't do it very often - haven't tried home-making sauce...an option)

I'm sure there are more but it feels like that's all we eat and we're stuck in a rut. Does anyone have any ideas of easy-ish things we can add to our repertoire? I am a competent but not creative cook - with good recipes I'm usually fine but I struggle to come up with new ideas myself.

Things I am thinking of trying out:

Pizza (I can make bread so I guess this wouldn't be too hard?)
Pies (DH longs for something from his youth called a 'Meat plate pie' which I have never heard of!)

And that's where I get stuck...like I said, not very creative!

Any ideas gratefully received!

Home made meatballs (Delia)
Pork and Olives (Delia) Dss are almost 11 and almost 14 though.
Homemade pasta bake
Enchiladas, usually chickpea ones. There's thread going on recipes has recipe on it. Dss inhale these.
Soup with crusty bread
Rice with chopped ham, veg and seasoning. Dss love rice based dishes.
Pitta breads with kofte and salad. Or pitta with chicken and salad.

That's a few of our reguars, plus do some of yours.

regulars pah!

Try a chicken and chirizo lasgne instead of the minced beef. It is delicious and made in exactly the same way.
Chicken breast wrapped in pancetta/parma ham stuffed with mozerella cheese is one of my favourites and very easy to cook. Monkfish wrapped in parma ham is bloody gorgeous too.
Plate pie is just a steak pie cooked on a plate with a pastry top i.e no pastry bottom.

Homemade pizza is lush and there's so many things you can make with it. I haven't done it for ages as gave my breadmaker away. Should do it though, dp's keen to make bread think I'll get him onto it?

Ooo yes forgot about chicken with parma we use philadelphia sometimes too.

Chickpea enchilada thread these are so lush. And mega cheap to make. I made some last night with cheap tortillas, 64p for 6, chickpeas were on offer 25p a tin (or use soaked and cooked) tomatoes were 25p a tin and it made 6. used onion etc.. too. Fed 3 of us for supper as dp was at work.

I do a lot of yours too, enchiladas and roasts.

I love Nigel Slater's chickpea, chorizo and tomato stew, we have that a couple of times a month adn it's really handy because chorizo keeps forever so you acn just have it last minute without going to the shop.

I make loads of soups too especially sweet potato and yellow split pea which is delicious but you have to remember to soak the peas first so weekends only really.

I do sausage casseroles with a tin of curried baked beans mixed through

sardines on toast

loads of onion/pepper/rice/cashew nut bits and bobs

a tray of roast veg - with spaghetti, or just nice bread, or with soem chicken or somethign

We make Pizza quite often and I don't have a bread machine, I have to admit because I am [not] a lazy bitch model parent, I use it as an activity. Dd does the kneading and puts the toppings on. I just sit back with my dry martini and laptop and let her get on with it.
We cook curry too, once every 3 weeks or so, I use a Hairy Bikers recipe I found on the internet, think it's called Mama's Beef Curry, which is bloody lovely.

Loving these ideas too. Have yet to find a curry that ds1 likes so will try that one theginganinja.

Great thread op.

And meat plate pie is just left over Beef stew with a pastry lid on it. And we have quite a lot of soup too. Dd also likes cheese pinwheels, which is just puff pastry spread with tomato pesto and grated cheese, then rolled up and sliced, which we have with veg or salad. Sometimes dh cooks a gammon steak and we have that as a meal, with veg and pots and then the rest of the week, it'll go into pasties with veg and cheese sauce or I'll knock up a quiche. That sort of thing.

I do chicken, bacon and leek pie with a pastry top and also a similar pie but with Salmon and peas.

Hmmm, other stuff...

Fish pie with mash topping
Cottage pie (vary the mince/veg in it....mix a bit of swede or sweet potato into the topping)
Thai curries
Morrocan Lamb or Beef stew with cous-cous
Chorizo and chickpea stew with Baked potato
Chicken thigh/or salmon tray-bakes with new potatoes (all in one tray with veg and bung in oven!)
Homemade burgers, Homemade fish-fingers
Lentil Daal with Naan breads
Turkey or pork stroganoff
Carbonara- sort of my own version without all the egg yolks
Mousakka if Lamb mince is on offer
Paella type dish with chorizo and prawns
Pork chops/steaks with a rub or marinade on served with mashed celeriac.

A simple stir-fry sauce for us is usually sesame oil/soy sauce/ginger/chilli flakes and a bit of honey.

Oh, tonight the kids are having home-made pizzas using sainsburys basic Naan breads as a base. Tis lovely.

We are having Gnocci with Bacon and spinach -yum!

Also- Homemade fishcakes used to be good but I find it costs a fortune now to make them so I buy them ready made when they are offer, we had the Haddock ones last night with Mash and veg.

Big pack of lamb mince - spag Bol one night, shepherds pie two days later.

Curry - you can make the base in advance and freeze then defrost in the morning ready for dinner.

Pizza or calzone (pizza folded in half - mushroom, spinach and mozzarella is my current fave)

Jamie Oliver's cod wrapped in streaky bacon

Meatballs with beef and pork mince in tom sauce

Roast chicken pieces - can do these with whole small new potatoes in one big dish for two. Takes about 30-40 mins on gas mark 7. Easy peasy. Add garlic, onions and herbs plus pancetta for flavour. Cheat with bisto gravy

Carbonara - with smoked salmon and peas (use eggs and a bit of cream). Or pancetta instead of salmon.

Risotto

I used to make a chilli, mint chicken with peppers and couscous but not done in a while.

Was any of this helpful op?

Gosh, yes! Just came back to it and there are so many good ideas here. Am going to attempt a curry of some description, something fishy (have just remembered how much I like mackarel so might do that!) and some homemade soups. Need to invest in a blender I think! Thanks everyone - will keep coming back to this (Also thanks PatTheHammer for the stir fry sauce recipe - will try it out.)

Was helpful to me to, thanks for starting it.