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

Me too. never heard of it/them. In Holland we have loads of food which is supposed to be Indonesian, but is really a bastardised version. I would love to discover some proper Indonesian recipes. Food here is generally not very good(apologies to any Dutch mums/d.hs): lots of stuff is just not authentic. Eg. You go to an Italian and the food is cooked by Turks (I have nothing against Turkish food BTW - love it-just the authenticity angle which gets to me!) Loads of Dutch food is deep fried or sandwiches. We sometimes go to Belgium which is aout 90 min drive and have real cheap Frenchy stuff which is much nicer

Tigger, veggie ideas for dinner guests:

Bruschetta or garlic portabella mushrooms as per my ramblings below (assuming they like garlic) with salad, french bread.

Cous cous is really nice with roasted vegetables: roast the veg (whatever you've got) first, then make the cous cous with vegetable stock, not water as it says on the packet. Mix the veg in, and I never bother to cook the cous cous. Can be served cold - good way to use up leftover veg too.

Or you could make a thai red/green curry with veg instead of meat (baby corn etc). The Barts spices pastes are really good. I used to faff about chopping lemon grass and the like until I tasted these and decided they were as good. Come to think of it though, I think they've got fish sauce in them so maybe that's why I made my own paste. Think they have actually but the paste isn't too much of a pain if you make it in advance. Let me know if you want the recipe!

I think durian is also known as jack fruit or bread fruit. It is delicious...nothing like it smells. But then again, I am the kind of person who would eat the little birds head and all that they sell in asia and have picked out and had fried in front of me little froggies in a market in china.
I had chickens as pets when i was young and I wouldn't have been able to eat them, but i'm quite happy to eat anyone elses chickens and personally find the free range ones tough and dry.
Tigger, are your sunday vegetarians the fish and chicken eating kind? Are you kitchen cooking or bbq-ing?

www - could you please post the recipe for veggie thai curry paste - thai's my favorite but dh and ds are veggie so it's for resturants only. And I can count resturant visits since ds's arrival on one hand! Thanks BB

Tigger, it drives me mad when people say that they are veggie and tyhen eat chicken and fish. The Vegetarian Society say that veggies don't eat anything with a face. We're not supposed to eat battery eggs or cheese made with normal rennet but I prefer to buy organic cheese because of its higher welfare standards. Dh only eats chicken and fish but he'd never claim to be veggie.

Is your party a sit-down affair or a buffet?

Tigger - what kind of party is it - do you need 'posh' veggie recipes or would something simple but tasty suffice?

OK Bluebear and anyone who's interested: recipe for Thai green curry paste follows (presumably substitute red chillis for red curry paste).

6 medium hot green chilli peppers (c 2 inches long), deseeded and chopped
2 stalks lemon grass, chopped
2 tablespoons coriander leaves (and stalks if pos)
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 inch knob - fnar fnar, sorry - ginger, chopped (unless you've got galangal, then use that)
2 shallots, chopped
1 teaspoon coriander seeds
1 teaspoon black peppercorns
1 teaspoon chopped lime zest
1 tablespoon lime juice

Whizz above to a paste in a blender. Will keep for a week in fridge.

To make Thai chicken/veg/whatever curry (very quick once you've got the paste above):

12floz coconut milk (I use creamed coconut often if I haven't got coconut milk, can't see the difference)
1 tsp groundnut oil (I never have this, always end up using olive oil)
2 tablespoons thai paste (as recipe above)
8 kaffir lime leaves (have done it with and without these and you could manage without easily IMO)
shredded basil leaves.

1. Cook chicken/veg/whatever
2. In separate pan bring coconut milk to almost boiling but don't let it boil
3. Stir thai curry paste into coconut milk
4. Add lime leaves if using and salt
5. Pour coconut milk mixture over the chicken/veg and simmer 10 mins 6.Add shredded basil leaves 7.Serve.

Enjoy!

Yes, durian is banned from polite society and all airlines, some hotels and public transport!

PamT, durians are green and about the size of a football and covered in spikes - they are cut open with a massive knife and the white segments inside are eaten. Maybe I'll try Enid's method of eating them, getting p*ssed first! BTW Enid, did you mean the sambal sauce, which is chillies and assorted ingredients? There are lots of versions, sweet, hot, with fish, etc.

Breadfruit and Jackfruit are different fruits altogether, Sofiames. The jackfruit is reputed to be the largest fruit in the world, up to 110lb. Imagine one of those falling out of a tree onto your head! BTW, I shall think of you next time I see the prepared chickens with their heads still on and the trays of chicken claws!

I now go shopping with a book to identify the fruit and veg. There's one veg which my book says tastes neutral and has minimal nutritional value. Why eat it then?????

And I forgot the stuffed chitterlings - yeeuucchhh!

mmm, sambal thats it. I ended up taking 6 bottles home with me but got through them all pretty quickly.

I remember ordering a chicken curry type dish and balking when it arrived as it was half a chicken carcass just chopped into bits, bones and all. Spent most of the meal fishing bits of bone shard out of my mouth.

Enid - you can get Sambal sauces in the UK from Fox's Spices, Masons Road Industrial Estate, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, CV37 9NF (phone 01789 266420) - they do mail order - not sure about a website though.

Talking about heads on chickens, we bought a chicken off a market stall in France a couple of weeks ago and it still had its head on. The stall holder offered to chop it off for me (I don't know if this was just because I was a wimpy English person ) and proceeded to decapitate it with the most enormous chopper. Ds (4yo) was totally fascinated by this and is still telling people he meets about the man chopping the chicken's head off.

Something tasty and simple, its part bbq and part real cooking!!

LOL, Enid - DH did a similar thing and was horrified at what arrived on his plate, tee hee!

Tigger, something really tasty, simple, and veggie to go on the BBQ:

Cut peppers (any colour) in half lengthways, remove the seeds, then put to roast on the barbie. When they're nearly done, place them outside down (so that they form a sort of little bowl), and in each put a slice of feta topped with a dollop of pesto. Serve when the cheese has melted. Scrummy!

My dh ordered a 'Pizza Lyonnaise' once on holiday in France and was horrified when his pizza arrived covered in tripe and onions!

ok get your barf bags out....my two favorite dishes as a child were curried tripe and sauteed calf brains.

One horrific food that makes me want to bauk is, wait for it Liver and Onions!!, god I can still smell it from miles away, we used to have to eat this at school.

Had a good idea for my veggie friends, stuff a pepper with breadcrumbs, and mushrooms and garlic and top with cheese? does that sound ok to all out there.

Tigger2, sounds nice. How about the cheese being goats cheese and adding a glug of good olive oil on top? Yummy

burnt oven chips and chicken dippers ...feel a take-away coming on

For a veggie barbecue

Take a whole bulb of garlic, take a slice off the top (like you would for a boiled egg) Nuke it in the microwave for about a minute. Drizzle a little bit of olive oil over it, fling a bit of salt on it and roast it on the barbie (or 10 minutes in the oven if it's raining). The cloves should be soft and slightly caramalised. Goes wonderfully squeezed out onto slices of nice bread.

I've got to confess that my all time favourite meal is fishfingers, chips and parsley sauce with either petit pois or baked beans. I loved it at school and I still love it. How sad is that? I did actually love most of my school meals, especially the puds.