Meal Planning - do you ever feel like you've cooked a million meals but can't think what to make for dinner?

[Gillian76]

Am planning for the rest of the week and devoid of ideas...

Have toyed with the idea of a monthly planner, but like to be spontaneous sometimes!

How about.....

curry
lentil,fetta and asparagus salad
kebabs
noodles,greens and poached chicken
spare ribs
chilli con carne
frittata
poached salmon

Anything grab yer??

Chilli is a staple in here.

Always mean to try kebabs, but never sure what to put on. Might add that to the list.

best thing to do is have staples in all the time. Then say if you have mince in you can decide whether to have spag bol, shepherds pie or chilli for example. Or salmon - salmon flakes, pasta, pesto and veg, or baked in the oven with new potatoes and a green veg. Same with chicken breasts casserole, curry etc

i write a list of meals for the week and choose from those, makes me feel sponatneous but i have still meal planned, if u see what i mean

I have a monthly planner. It doesn't stop me from being spontaneous, in fact it frees me up to be spontaneous. Also it allows me to experiment with new dishes. I only put a completely new meal on the planner once a month and if they like it, then it gets to be used again, if they don't... well it was only one in a month.

Kebabs
Cube some meat-pork,chicken or beef.
Make your marinade-minced garlic,ginger,soy,honey and mustard.
Put meat in it for an hour or so,then thread onto kebab sticks.

Grill turning once or twice.
Kids love them too.

www.bbc.co.uk/food have a recipe index you can use by searching several ingrediants, I always find that gives me ideas. Also in my spare time I read cookery books and watch cooking channel on tv (how sad am I) - I don't usually cook recipes striaght from books/tvs but they give me ideas about different things to cook and the way different ingrediants work together.

Another idea I used to use is to pick one day a week (we used to use monday) and then pick a different country every week and cook a meal from that country. IF your kids are old enough they could get involved with this and it can give you new ideas for meals to cook - or if they are old enough get them to do it!

Also the buying a random new ingrediant and then working out what to cook it with - I have just bought some miso stuff and am planning to make a chicken and noodle soup with it.

Hope this has given you some ideas of where to get inspiration from.

We do a wqeeklyplanner - but it is fluid - in that I will buy meat/things for something eg chicken for a curry and end up doing enchiladas or pie or something like that.

tandoori chicken - just get some tandoori paste and paint the chicken breasts - grill, when cooked - I serve it on a bed of rice with veges and a dollop of natural yoghurt. Have had it on salad or couscous.

can pass on recipe for mushroom risotto, courgette and creamed corn fritters if you like.

What about 3 meals that use 2 ingredients in common?

So night 1 is sausage and mash (cook double)
night 2 is a cottage pie using the mash and some mince (cook double)
night 3 is lasagne using the rest of the mince

I even extended it to make double white sauce and we had califlower cheese the 4th night with a roast chicken, that was then sandwiches on the 5th day, and went on a pizza - and then it was the weekend again.

It worked really well and I am thinking of a similar idea for next week.