What inspires you to try new meals

[21mealspluscake]

Just wondering how often you purposely set out to try something new to cook and what inspires it. I seem to bounce between the tried and loved - made a proper roast chicken dinner on the weekend with gravy and bread sauce and stuffing and lots of veg and really enjoyed eating it and having the leftovers.

During the week last week I tried out a cold aubergine salad with sesame paste and rice wine vinegar, and a spinach salad with ginger dressing to go with spare ribs and rice just because I wanted to try something different as side dishes when I know already I like the ribs with ginger and blackbeans. Pleased to say it was great.

Most weeks I try a new dish - sometimes not so great! Which then puts me off new things for a bit

I get Olive on subscription (birthday gift from MIL every year) so I try new things really often. Their recipes are almost foolproof and can often be modified to what you have in stock. Sausage and spinach cannelloni was one of the biggest recent hits with the family, also meat terrines and savoury picnic pie. Later this autumn I shall be making sushi rolls for the first time...

I am trying new things because I am not a good cook and need to expand my repertoire and because I like the DC's to try lots of different things.
I also really enjoy trying to dish something up that's as healthy and unprocessed as possible while still being cheap.

So,yes.really it's trying to learn how to cook a range of cheap and nutritious meals.

Once a month we have what we jokingly call a gourmet night (think Fawlty Towers) it will be a cuisine from another country, I spend a few days researching recipes. The meal night is with all the family round the dining room table and each person brings 2 facts about that country, the celebration or the food. It has been great fun and so far have had Burn's night, Chinese new year Jewish passover, Japanese showa day, Polish, Swedish, French & middle eastern.

The kids have kept a scrapbook of the photos of the food and their favourite recipes from the nights. We've used a lot of the recipes in our normal meals, things we'd never have considered before!

They've already picked countries for next year!

Pinky years ago my mum sent me a subscription to Gourmet magazine -she's in Australia - think it's where it started for me too, though I'm yet to attempt sushi!

Very it taught me a lot and has definitely made me a braver cook - if somethings a disaster - which is devastating when it happens - I realise after I should just try something else - or go back to stuff I know for a week!

Red I love the sound of your eating round the world nights! Genius to have a theme and then get everyone involved. Think it's what I would love most is to always see new food as an exciting adventure rather than possible catastrophe

I try to do at least one new recipe every weekend, sometimes I'll do one in the week as well my dozens hundreds thousand-plus and counting cookery books have got to earn their keep somehow

Come dine with me and on here

Today I made slow cooker chicken because it looked so easy and then whacked it in the oven for 20mins at the end to crisp up and decided it would be good to cover it in honey...

Was lovely.

Mrsp my cookbooks have gone from an entire ikea bookcase in the hall to two shelves in the front room as well. And then I keep reading the Internet and finding intriguing things! Afterwards I think ooooh must make that again when I remember a dish I haven't had for a while - might have to live to 300 just to include all the recipes I like the sound of

Filee - hot crisp honey chicken yum

I often flick through old Good Food magazines and my collection of recipe books, as I find that things I've never been inspired to try before suddenly become the thing I want to cook.

The contents of the veg box also push me to find new recipes, as I hate throwing any of it away. Some turn out to be keepers, some don't, but I'd get bored if I didn't experiment a bit.

Red that sounds such good fun!

Tonight I tried quorn mince in a spag bol and it got the thumbs down.
But that's spurring me on to find a way of cooking in that my 'panel' approves of!

Morien I'm with you on finding something to make instead of throwing any thing away, it does make me try things. last night I made a leek and potato soup - with chicken stock from a couple of carcasses I'd had in the freezer - and I crushed it a bit but served it 'rough'! We're away from Friday so tonight we had the rest of the soup, pureed, then added the last of a bit of pecorino cheese grated into it - because cheese is good with potatoes and good with leeks so, you know, bound to be worth a try! Really good - keeper even - and used up what we had without adding to the freezer. Result!

Very sometimes perserverance is the answer!

Yes 21meals and I'm determined not to chuck in an oxo cube because that kind of defeats the point for me!

Any ideas anyone to hide that 'not meat' taste?

I'm with you on the oxo cubes! Have you tried lentils instead? I use green lentils a lot - you can get them in most shops, v cheap in ethnic supermarkets, no need to soak, high in protein and they taste great. Better texture than quorn too. I gently fry 3 or 4 cloves of crushed garlic and a chopped onion, celery if I have some in olive oil till the onion is soft and translucent, then add the lentils and cook them in the oil for a couple of minutes before adding tomatoes and maybe a bay leaf or some rosemary. Cook for about 40 minutes till the lentils are soft. Puy lentils would work too.

Thanks 21meals. That sounds lovely,and I adore lentils so I'll have to try that.

You just buy them as dry green lentils,and use without soaking?
Brilliant - it's always knowing what to do that puts me off dried stuff.

After a while, I can get into a rut and make the same old things. I've made a list of about 20 or so tried-and-tested meals that I know we all like, so I tend to meal plan from that as well as checking the BBC Good Food website every now and then for some inspiration and to add something new to my list. Sounds a bit sad, but my memory is terrible so it helps for me to look at the list and think, "Oh yeah, haven't had that in ages"

And if it's not on the list and I know we've had it before, I can assume it's one of those dishes where OH has said, "It's okay. It's not one of your best though"

We do at least one new recipe a week (it was two pre-DD). One source of inspiration has been the cookery book club on here. We do ywo books/magazines/blogs a month and each choose two things to cook from each one. Most people use their library or look things up online if they don't have the books. It's interesting to see what other people choose and good to know what it's like before deciding whether to make it. Plus some of the books are not things I'd have chosen but there's always something to like.

Come and join us!