Dinner inspiration- where do you get yours from?

[poppymaewrite]

I love cooking dinner for family (when I have the energy) and I will normally use instagram for some inspiration. There are some really good foodie posts out there, but I when I go on instagram I juts get sucked in!

How do you decide what to have for dinner? Do you use instagram as well, or do you use a website, magazine? Or do you just see what you have in the fridge and google '(e.g. spinach) recipes'?

I do a weekly meal plan with days of the week & shop for what we plan to have.

Some old faves, some simply cook ideas or bbc good food site. If I do see something on Instagram I will add it to the meal plan another week so I can shop for the bits I need.

I don't meal plan - I have no idea what I will fancy eating beyond today.

I use "eatyourbooks". You tell it what books you have, then you search for e.g. spinach+chicken. You can refine it by ethnicity etc. I got 34 hits without refining.

You can also search for online recipes - again refined by many different parameters - I got c.1600 again before refining.
I use the paid service (very cheap), but there is a free cut-down service.

I’m not really a recipe cook. I get inspiration for anywhere and everywhere, magazine, tv, things we chat about at work, dishes I’ve eaten in restaurants, instagram, Pinterest, sometimes I just walk round the supermarket, see ingredients and just concoct something. If I want a specific recipe my usual go to websites are delicious and olive.

My dinner inspiration is DH

When he phones and says let's go out for dinner tonight or I'll get a takeaway for us on my way home 😂😂😂😂
To be fair we do eat out a lot 2/3 times a week we think it's good for dd to get used to eating out. 😛
M&S food hall is also my friend.
I don't like cooking.

I got a joe wicks book about 18 months ago that I never used.
About a month ago, my 8 year old went through it and picked the meals he liked the look of, we tried some of them and they were really nice so since then I pick our dinners based on this.

Bbc good food group and magazine, delicious magazine, websites I've stumbled upon when searching for ideas on Google and I also borrow cookbooks from the library.

My family know dinners are based on what's on offer.

Nagi and the ‘recipe tin eats’ food blog.
Cooked more of her recipes than any other web site.
Only one that I would not cook again.
Slow cooker beef stroganoff is a favourite for convenience and price.
Also love chicken Alfredo for time- can’t beat a 15 minute recipe!

Do a few weeks of Gousto when I’m lacking inspiration, otherwise will get from recipe books I have or whatever pops up on my Facebook feed, sometimes just make up as I go along.

Newspapers or their suppliments. Cook from scratch,but sometimes it might just be buttered toast

I meal plan each week and try to have themes. We have an Italian night, Mexican, Chinese and Indian. Saturdays we sometimes do a "fake-away" like home made burgers or kebab. Sundays tends to be a roast or casserole.
Most recipes are from Google or cookbooks.

Gousto helped us as well. A friend gave us a code and we've saved the recipe cards. The DC tend to pick a few they want for the next week, we usually have a pizza night, a roast on a Sunday abc a curry each week so that covers it.

I have a silly amount of cookbooks.

I flick through every sunday afternoon and make meal plans. I also look at a few food blogs.

Forgot to say that I also use Pinch of Nom recipes, mainly from their website.

I also meal plan and go through my cookbooks regularly. I have several meals I do on rotation, lots of 'that'll do" type meals - using up fridge stuff/ something from the freezer/end of week store cupboard meals etc and then I try to add something new. I read the menu planning threads on here and watch cookery programmes on TV. I often get an "I fancy..." feeling, so scour the internet for options and save all my recipes to Whisk.

@Christmasdinner are the joe wicks recipes good and are they family friendly? Thanks

[quote Ichangedmynameonce]@Christmasdinner are the joe wicks recipes good and are they family friendly? Thanks[/quote]
Yeah we are loving them.

DS can be fussy but we eat have been eating chicken/turkey/chorizo/pork based dishes and the only thing he didnt eat in the last month were sweet potato fries. He tried them but they just made him gag. I can also be picky and before I would have left out things from recipes (eg the mango chutney in the coronation chicken) but I've gone completely with the recipes and we all love the overall combinations. I have 2 DS (8yo and 2yo) I'm mostly doing meals that cook in less than 30 mins.

Have obviously seen advert for Gousto and the like, how much do they cost?

@MrsPleasant

I also meal plan and go through my cookbooks regularly. I have several meals I do on rotation, lots of 'that'll do" type meals - using up fridge stuff/ something from the freezer/end of week store cupboard meals etc and then I try to add something new. I read the menu planning threads on here and watch cookery programmes on TV. I often get an "I fancy..." feeling, so scour the internet for options and save all my recipes to Whisk.

Ooh what is whisk? It sounds interesting as I'm forever losing recipes that I've tried.

@Summertime10 it's an app where you can save recipes and also has lots of recipe ideas on there. There may be better ones available, but that one is free and has been working well for me. I used to have SO MANY tabs open of recipes I'd looked at and now I just bung them in there instead.

I choose our meals on a condition of what's quick and easy to cook if we're busy that evening or something that takes longer to prep and cook etc if we're not. Or if we haven't got much money, like this week, it depends on budget I had £30 this week to spend on food for 4 of us, me, dh, dc 16 and 9 so as cheap as poss. Meals we have this week are cottage pie and veg today, mac and cheese, jacket spuds and beans, pasta bake, egg chips beans, soup and bread, chicken wings and chips.

@nannybeach for a family of 4, for 4 meals per week is approx 39.99, there may be additional charges for steak etc, you can have this code which I think gives you 60% off first box and 30% off for remainder of the month, DEBBI31117709, just remember to cancel as it’s a subscription, cancelling is easy.

@Christmasdinner your son sounds like mine! Thanks for the info, would you mind letting me know which of the books you have please. Thank you!

@Ichangedmynameonce its the '30 day kick start plan' book

@Christmasdinner thank you