What are you cooking for dinner tonight?

[oxocube]

I love to cook but I am so bored cooking the same old stuff, week after week. What are you all cooking for dinner? Can you give me inspiration

Bayleaf - sorry, I just re-read your message and noticed the "recently" bit! That would have been very keen...!

Yes - stricly speaking I was cheating as it wasn't what I was coooking for tea - but I was just surprised to see exactly the same recipe as I'd used knowing that I'd got it from a magazine - Yes I also cut out the '10 ways with Salmon' all those years ago!!!! Have you made the smoked salmon and potato layre thing??? It's very nice!

Rhubarb, thought I might try your sweet and sour one at the w/e, is the marinade enough for 2 or 4 people and what sort of chillies? You never know, it looks simple enough that even I might not balls it up!

I hate cooking. I'm a veggie and dh hates pasta, rice and pulses. In fact his favourite meal is chicken burger and chips. So most nights I cook two separate meals and just can't be bothered to do anything creative.

We intend to bring dd up as mainly veggie with a bit of chicken and fish. When we sit down to eat and she and mummy have someting nice with lentils, and daddy has chips with everything, I think we might have a problem!

Bayleaf - maybe we're living in parallel universes..?!
The kedgeree is the only recipe I've ever tried from that selection, I'll try the layer pie next time!

One of my favourite quick suppers which we had tonight is peppers stuffed with goats cheese. Thickly slice some potatoes and lay out on a baking tray. Drizzle with oil or use the low cal spray oil stuff. Season with salt & pepper. Put in hot oven. Meanwhile cut 2 peppers in half (I like the orange and yellow ones) and scoop out the seeds and white bits. Stick on a tray (or grill pan in our case) and put in oven for about 15 mins to soften. Take a couple of slices of goats cheese and cube. Cut a clove of garlic into slivers. When peppers have softened take out of the oven and put a few garlic bits in each one, top with as much goats cheese as you can fit in and drizzle with oil. Stick them back in the oven until the potato slices have cooked to a golden brown. Serve and enjoy. The whole process takes about 30 mins and is delicious. We also have it with couscous.

I think the Waitrose site (or maybe the Carlton food network site) has a facility where you can type in what you have in the fridge and it comes up with recipes.
We had trout baked with cherry tomatoes, olive oil, garlic, thyme, basil and lemon. V. nice!

sobernow- I've always wanted to keep chickens as I know dh will feel too guilty to go on eating them!

I'm not vegetarian but I can only cope with meat that is prepared and prepacked in supermarket trays. Dealing with a whole chicken really puts me off eating it, I don't like to be reminded that it used to be a living thing. I once won a leg of pork in a raffle. When it was delivered it had been cut into 3 pieces and all the wrapping had 'kill date' stamped on it above the use by date. DH has been a reluctant meat eater ever since.

BTW, the BBC web site food pages have loads of good recipes and also a recipe finder where you can enter up to 3 ingredients and all the suitable recipes will pop up.

PamT, you pig story is funny My kids are surprisingly unscweamish (sp?) about meat: we live next door to a field where lambs are raised for meat, and the kids often go into the field to play with them. They know they will be taken to slaughter soon and are not in the slightest bit bothered! When we eat lamb, they often ask if it could be one of the ones from the field next door! Our neighbours keep chicken, so same again! They are also really interested in things which are cooked alive such as lobsters, shellfish etc and love to watch them in fish markets, supermarkets.

Sorry, PamT, should have read YOUR pig, not YOU pig

Oxocube, lol! Dd and I went to get some eggs from the chickens at a nearby smallholding and she had great delight in telling them that she 'ate them last night with carrots and potatoes'.

Ok here are a few of our mid-week faves. Chargrilled chicken caeser salad (I whizz up the anchovies with garlic and olive oil, spread the mixture on thin white bread cut into triangles and cook it in the oven until dry and crisp)and make an aioli for the dressing. Chicken or lamb marinated in yoghurt and cumin, grilled and served with pita bread, tzatziki, hummus and salad. Lots of cous cous based dishes. Beef Stroganoff. Mozarella, Avocado and Tomato Salad served with parma ham and ciabatta.

Lots of BIG chicken sandwiches involving marinated chicken, roasted tomatoes, avocado, mushrooms and whatever else is around stuffed into ciabatta. A variety of stir fries using with tuna steaks, salmon fillets, pork or beef. Spaghetti Carbonara

A dish that always goes down well with toddlers as well as adults is chickens breasts brushed with melted butter, garlic and mustard and topped with a mixture of breadcrumbs, parmesan, basil and bacon (already cooked and chopped finely) and baked in the oven for around 35 mins.

On Friday morning I usually try and make a large tart/raised pie and cake/pudding which sees us through the weekend.

sounds great, bells2. I used to make a chicken in crumbs v similar to the one you describe but had forgotten about it. My kids love it too!

We didn't eat the curry after all as we went to the cinema (Minority Report) so I ended up having a large popcorn and large coke for my dinner!

Had the curry last night, even better.

Tonight: garlic, olive oil, butter, anchovies fried till they make a gloopy paste. Lots of just cooked broccoli stirred in, then whizzed in the whizzer. Add a bit of cream if you've got any, and some parmesan and serve with pasta shells.

Yummy.

Can I ask a question here, why do some people who are vegetarian eat chicken and fish, and not red meat? Just wondering why, being a farmer I suppose I'm being nosy!! And for the record, I cannot eat lamb that has been reared on the farm or beef, we buy a bullock or heifer in for that purpose, couldn't eat anything that has been on farm at all!

Also, I need abit of help here, we are having a party on sunday and a couple of our friends are vegetarian, and I could do with some inspiration for nice food for them.

I suppose it depends what grounds they're vegetarian on, Tigger. Personally, I'd rather give battery chicken a miss. Also, prefer to eat large animals, as always feel a bit bad about eating little things like prawns. I mean, so many of them have died to make one meal, and if you leave one on your plate, it died for nothing! Does anyone else feel the same, or am I just crackers?
Vegetarian suggestions: couscous with vegetable soup. Blended soups. Homemade pizza. Cold or hot roasted vegetables with fresh bread. I get a lot of inspiration reading the labels of products like the Covent Garden Soup company down at Sainsbury's, and then reproducing them at home!

I've been food shopping today in Jakarta. They have some truly disgusting things here. I'm not veggie (although wouldn't mind being one) but would never be able to eat fertilised eggs. Apparently, you swallow down the little chick inside - yeeeugghhh!

Also, poor frogs all hopping round in a tank, and fish and snake-y things and crabs in tanks etc. 6 yr old DD did't realise they were to be eaten - she thought we were in the pet section of the shop!!

Other delights I managed to refrain from buying were dried fish, complete with eyes staring at me, and chicken-and-onion or tuna flavoured porridge.

Suedonim, have you tried durian yet

Oh grief, Enid, I arrived out here just as the durians arrived in the markets. Haven't been brave enough to try it. Have you - and is the taste better than the smell? Looks like dead fingers, to me!

I have tried it, when I was p**d one night in Jakarta (this was pre-dd I hasten to add). The vodka was necessary to instill the courage required. In fact, the taste is quite nice, like a kind of citric banana. But I couldn't really get beyond the smell.

I love that soy sauce stuff they have there, is it ketchup manis? There's a spicy and a sweet one, I loved the spicy one on noodles.

Excuse me please, what are durians?