Which 5 meals do you cook most often?

[MrsHuxtable]

Please indulge me. Been sick with hyperemesis for the last 5 months, so the thought of food was pushed to the very back of my mind. I'm now ready to look at cookbooks again. It's bliss! In fact, I'm a little obsessed at the moment with all the things I want to eat...

So what are the 5 meals you make the most often?

And also, how many different meals are there roughly in your repertoire that you rotate for dinner?

I have just made a 6 week meal planner from this with no repeats!

Autumn/Winter:

chorizo and red lentil casserole
Salmon en croute (with salad and chips!)
Falafel and houmous salad
Chicken fajitas
Sausage and broccoli pasta

Plus a roast on Sundays which rotates through Jamie's "Fantastic Roast Chicken", slow cooked lamb and butterbean stew, beef, red wine and shallot casserole or a joint or some sort.

In the Spring/Summer it's mostly different types of salads (feta/tuna/mackerel/mozarella and avocado etc)

Just searched this thread for fajitas and they get 25 mentions! Arriba!

Oh God, I seem to cook the same things all the time!!!

The usual suspects are:
-Roast chicken (either with veg and gravy or salad and cous cous)
-Chilli con carne (with rice, or in wraps, or in tacos)
-Spaghetti carbonara
-Lamb casserole (sometimes with carrots and parsnips, sometimes with butter beans)
-chicken stir fry (with rice or noodles).

I have a rotation of about twenty five with some featuring more regularly than others: frittata, salmon, fish cakes, sausage and mash, steak and chips, chicken in wine, pizza.

I have millions of cook books and am trying to instigate at least one new dish a week (or at least one we haven't eaten for an age). Have recently introduced Delia's Chicken Basque which went down very well, and roast butternut and sweet potato soup which was less well received.

I can make Sheperds pie in my sleep, and my DH really likes it when I make it. He has friends around to eat it too, and one of them said that its better than his wifes so comes over on the day I cook it to have some. Apparently, cant claim bragging rights as she's a friend of mine so may be offended

DH and I also make a spag bol but with meatballs instead of the mince, which is really nice. DD will eat that, but if its spag bol she doesn't eat the mince.

Chicken with chips and beans makes an appearence quite regularly.

Sausage casserole is also a common one in my house.

Roast pork or pork loin steaks too, yummy.

Flatbread - you can have my beans on toast recipe if you like. Mainly, remember to take the beans out of the tin before placing on the toasted bread. And don't use runner beans because they are the only things that grew in your garden. Very disappointed faces will ensue...

Pasta bake
Curry
Veg stir fry
roast dinner
jacket potato, baked beans and cheese

In the summer we had ratatouille & fish once a week, the boys have fishfingers and chips once a week.

I have probably about 8-10 other meals that I make regularly and a few more that need a bit more planning!

What a great thread. DH is coming home hours early and thanks to the inspiration found here he will find a corned beef hash all cooked and ready to put in the oven rather than a DW glued to the latest AIBU with no thought to dinner.

I've never made it before (veggie and I boak at most meat) but since I had all the other ingredients apart from the tinned evil I thought I'd give it a go. It looks and smells lovely.

My usual meals are deli and salad, things on toast, twice-baked potatoes with fillings and egg and chips

My DD is vegetarian but my DS is a staunch carnivore so meal planning can be a bit tricky. The usual suspects are:

Vegetable soup, ingredients based on what needs to be eaten
Vegetable casserole (with, if my DS is being lucky, some chopped up sausages or meatballs for him to dunk in his bowl)
Roast pork with all trimmings and some suitable veggie for DD (roast veggie tart, Linda McCartney pie etc)
Chicken/Quorn Fajitas
Chicken/Quorn/Veggie curry

And the thing they both wish I'd cook more often but I get very bored by:
home-made pizza

I tend to do

Saturday - Kids choice/takeaway

Sunday - Roast

Monday - Cold

Tuesday - Pasta

Wednesday - Pie/sausages

Thursday - Rice

Friday - Don't cook - fish finger/chicken nuggets.

As a basis then see what in the freezer to chuck in to make a dinner.

wasabi prawn salad (for me and DH -kids wont touch with a barge pole)
pizza (for kids)
seafood lasagne
chicken stew in slow cooker
curry of some description (we have Madhur Jaffrey curry easy book and basically make a curry of whatever we have in following one of her recipes)

*Sunday roast, all the trimmings
*Pizza night (with homemade pizza (yes including the dough!), garlic bread, roasted sweetcorns, fresh green or coleslaw salad - practically the only thing I use my processor for, shredding vegetables...)
*Baked fish (usually salmon) with either boiled or jacket spuds & veg
*Sweet & sour chicken with noodles (sauce from a jar, sue me!)
*Smoked salmon pasta in a homemade white wine sauce (my ultimate store cupboard standby, I can have this on the table in ten minutes flat if I've got a packet of the salmon trimmings in the freezer)

I'm going to attempt a sausage casserole. Never made one before. Do I need to cook/grill the sausages before putting them in the casserole dish? And should I put a tin of tomatoes in as well?

I get the Good Food and Sainsbury's magazine and sit down on the 1st of the month and write down all the recipes I want to try. I love cooking but I prefer cooking something new. My DH often complains that he never sees the same thing twice. Apart from that, absolute standards are roast chicken; a prawn/feta/tomato thing with rice, pork loin chops with a mushroom and cream sauce; chicken breasts wrapped in bacon or parma ham or stuffed with Boursin cheese; salmon in some sort of honey/soy/mirin dressing and fish finger sandwiches.

Oh and Molly - you def. need to cook the sausages first otherwise they are pale and uninteresting. I usually fry them in some olive oil, take them out then sweat the veg in the same oil. Onions and peppers fab in sausage casserole or celery and carrots if you want a more trad. version. Sausages also lovely cooked with lentils or haricot beans - or just chuck a tin of baked beans in near the end.

Molly - Yes you can grill then or brown a little in the pan first, otherwise they look rather flaccid!

I make mine by browning sausages, then add softened garlic and onions (I do it in a different pan so they don't burn), a tin of tomatoes (or passata), then I add chicken stock or vegetable bouillon if I haven't got any, add a couple of handfuls of red lentils, and/or a tin of cannellini or butter beans. Plus a dash of Worcester sauce.

Sometimes I add red wine/balsamic glaze/thyme or mixed herbs if it needs some.

I wait to salt and pepper it to serve so the kids can have it too.

I am simultaneously ashamed and inspired reading this.
However - my top stock 5 reads something like this (in no particular order):-
Lentil soup
Leek and potato soup
Stilton soup
Macaroni cheese
Roast

Luckily my DH is the main meal-muster-upperer (usually as he turns his nose up at what I suggest!)

Would just like to point out my recipie a few pages ago should have said carraway seeds, not cumin seeds

On a mission for cheap easy and getting more veggies in:
Roast chicken, veggies and gravy
V chunky, homemade Minestrone soup and garlic flatbreads
Ham omlettes or potato and onion frittata and salads
Homemade watercress or leek/potato soup followed by jacket potatoes with either pesto or cheese
Chicken breasts with green veggies and potato gratin
Free for all Friday - pizza/curry/chinese - either take away or homemade depending on who is in charge
I like decent fish on a Sat, had sea bass last Sat....
When DD cooks, its sausages, mash, gravy and peas.

x-post! As took so long writing mine whilst being pestered by the kids

Ridiculously lazy and uninspired, but fortunately DP's even lazier and even less inspired (and lived on takeaway pizza and ravioli for years)
We tend to have

• butternut squash curry
• grilled salmon with rice and stir-fried vegetables
• shakshuka for when EXCEPTIONALLY lazy (it's eggs poached in a tomato and pepper sauce. Very easy, very tasty, relatively healthy)
• meatballs with rice
• BIG salad

I rarely use a recipe for savouries/main courses, I'm more of a make-it-up-as-you-go-along cook, or use a recipe once then adapt it to taste or what is in the cupboard another time.
Favourites and regulars are:
Roast lamb or chicken
Pasta with smoked salmon and cream cheese, often with green beans or peas
Stir fry with nuts, paneer cheese, or leftovers from roast
Mushroom spinach and paneer curry, or leftover meat curry
Home-made chicken 'nuggets' or strips and home made chips

I often cook simpler food separately for the dc, and have a pot meal/soups which last me several days. On my own with dc now so no more dh whims to cater for! Dd has recently announced she is veggie (but eats some fish) and I am mostly veggie and eat a lot of home made soup, cheese sandwiches, eggs and salad.

Oh yes I forgot home made pizza is a favourite with all of us.

Ooh yes, love homemade pizza. My favourite is chorizo, feta and rosemary.
Tummy rumbling now, reading all these. Hurry up DH!

Mmm, mushroom, spinach and paneer curry sounds good LieIns

BTW we used to say we were having a Saturday morning Lion complete with lots of roaring at each other when the DC's were little. ( evolved from Saturday Lie-In )

Or a nice muttar paneer with peas.

How do you make curries everyone, heat some spices and then fry some onions, then add peas/ veg and paneer ?? Would that be the sort of thing ?