For me it’s currently fish tacos. Tortillas, white fish, southwest seasoning, and toppings to taste. Been making them weekly for a few years now somehow without getting bored of it.
I cook most of our meals. My kids would eat ma po tofu every day I think. Husband asks for pierogi and sausage and sauerkraut all the time. Youngest would eat homemade macaroni and cheese probably every day. Yellow rice and chicken with black beans is always well received, as are bean and cheese simple burritos.
Tostadas. Make them with seasoned ground beef/chicken, chopped lettuce, tomatoes, onion, and salsa if I have it on hand (usually I do). Delicious every time. Easy to make and filling. Will also add beans if I have them.
I like tilapia fried in garlic olive oil, roasted asparagus, and cous cous. I eat it at least 3x a week for lunch. It’s easy and cheap and freezes well.
I do meal prep once a week with my mom. We just get together at her place and cook like 10 or 12 meals and put them in containers and I freeze them. Cheaper than TV dinners and it’s easy lunch and dinner for the week.
I absolutely despise cooking, so taking the ingredients to my parents’ place forces me to cook. At my house, I can just procrastinate.
I cook most of my food. Lentil curry. Chilli. Apricot Chicken. Are my three meal prep’s at the moment. I need a few meal preps or even tasty food can start to feel like a chore if I’m eating the same thing repeatedly.
I just bought a ham hock to make pea and ham soup today to mix it up a bit. I think my next lentil curry will be dal makhani, normally I do red lentils and yellow curry paste.
Fruit, nuts and a protein shake for breakfast. Usually a salad for lunch. Neither of which are particularly “cooking”, more assembling.
Tortellini pesto - seems like a lot of steps but it’s simple and fast, little prep time needed
- slice up some chicken and coat with lemon pepper rub
- sear it in the cast iron skillet
- boil the tortellini
- strain it, goddam, forgot to keep some pasta water again
- a couple tablespoons of olive oil in the pan,
- heat garlic and red pepper flakes to infuse the oil
- dump in a small jar of pesto and mix with infused oil, then turn off the burner
- throw in the pasta, a cut up bell pepper and the meat, and mix (effing pasta water would make this perfect)
- fold in some shaved Parmesan and fresh baby spinach leaves, and serve
Edit: this was me discovering wilted spinach is much better than slimy black overcooked spinach that I experienced most of my life, and I haven’t gotten tired of it. If I remember the pasta water, it’s nice and creamy
Burgers and fries
I make my own burgers … buy about 2kg of lean ground beef when it’s on sale … mix them by hand with salt, spice, Worcester sauce … measure out about 2oz to 3oz portions, press them in a burger press that is a bit large … it makes a really thin burger patty. I like the thin patty because it only takes about five to seven minutes to cook. If I feel like having more, I just cook more patties.
I only cook a few at a time, then freeze the rest. Always nice to have a ready made supply of homemade patties.
I also cut my own fries, cover them in a bit of oil, then air fry them. Toss them with a bit of salt at the end.
I used to work as a fast food cook at our family’s own burger joint when I was a teen. Homemade burgers and fries just seem like second nature to me at this point.
I make tacos every Tuesday. The only thing I change up is the meat used.
I eat toast with cream cheese and a poached egg almost every morning and there’s some synergy between the unctuous yolk, the sour cheese, and my hot sauce that is just about mana from heaven.
You could make it Turkish and add a dollop of yogurt.
I cook dinner virtually every night, but probably my (and my family’s) favorite is Lemon Chicken Picatta.
I cut chicken breasts into pieces about nugget sized, then season w/ salt & pepper. Toss them in flour to coat, then pan-fry them in vegetable oil. Basically, home-made chicken nuggets (my wife says they’re very similar to Chik-Fil-A nuggets).
When the chicken is done, I use the same pan, which now has a bunch of fond from the meat. Sautee some minced garlic, then add a bunch of chicken broth and thinly sliced lemons. Sautee that for a bit while scraping everything off the bottom of the pan. Add lemon juice and capers. Cook a bit longer. Take off the heat and add butter and parsley. Then pour the sauce over the chicken.
I usually serve it over pearl couscous with a side of air-fried broccoli.
For mother’s day, I cooked a piece of fish in some of the sauce. I don’t particularly like fish, but my wife said it was delicious.
Burritos with baked tofu, peanuts and onions, fried and hastily squished beans, brown rice and cheese. 10 mins of work for 6 servings and then I store them in the freezer and just chuck them in the microwave as needed. Great low effort food and much healthier than most other microwave snacks.
I do the same thing but different burrito filling 🙌
Lately, I’ve really got into making sheet-pan dinners. Baked (and marinated) chicken breast surrounded by halved baby potatoes, broccoli, carrots and cauliflower with a little feta cheese sprinkled on after it comes out of the oven. Hearty and delicious! :)
Douse it in herbs and lemon, fantastic dish.
Er, I feel like this is my time:
African Chicken And Jollof Rice
Asparagus And Crayfish Tail Tagliatelle
Aubergine Laksa
Baked Salmon W. Lemon Couscous
Barbecued Spatchcock Chicken With Potato Salad
Blackened Chicken And Dirty Rice
Blackened Salmon And Dirty Rice
Burgers
Butter Chicken
Cajun Chicken Thighs And Dirty Rice
Caldeirada - Portuguese Fish Stew
Carbonara
Carnitas
Chicken Adobo
Chicken And Butternut Squash Tray Bake
Chicken And Mushroom Casserole
Chicken Biryani
Chicken Caesar Salad
Chicken Enchiladas
Chicken Fried Rice
Chicken Kebabs And Couscous
Chicken Kyivs
Chicken Milanese
Chicken Paprikash
Chicken Ramen
Chicken Shawarma
Chicken Taquitos
Chicken Thighs - Greek Style
Chicken Tikka Kebabs
Chilli Con Carne
Doner Kebabs
Fish Pie
Fish, New Potatoes, Asparagus
Fish, New Potatoes, Samphire
Gnocchi And Green Veggies
Grilled Chicken Tacos
Jamaican Chicken Curry
Jambalaya
Kedgeree
Kofte Kebabs And Koshari Rice
Mac ‘N’ Cheese
Mediteranean Chicken And Cous Cous
Oklahoma Onion Burgers
Paneer Curry Wraps
Pasta Alla Norcina (Sausage & Cream)
Penang Curry
Penne Alla Vodka
Peri Peri Chicken
Pesto Pasta
Portuguese Baked Cod
Portuguese Green Soup
Ragu Alla Bolognese Tagliatelle
Ragu Alla Genovese Tagliatelle
Red Beans And Rice
Red Salmon Pasta
Risotto – Chicken And Asparagus
Risotto – Mushroom
Roast Chicken
Salmon, Asparagus, And Crushed Potatoes
Sausage And Potato Tray Bake
Sicilian Chicken Spaghetti
Smoked Salmon, Lemon And Garlic Spaghetti
Steak/Chicken And Chips
Stir-Fried Tofu
Tandoori Chicken
Tortellini Soup With Chicken & Spinach
Tuna Pasta Bake
Tuscan Chicken, Bean, And Spinach Soup
Tuscan Pork Pasta
Veggie Chilli
White Chilli
Za’tar Salmon And Spinach RiceEdit to add: I can dig up my recipe for any of these if anyone is interested.
But if you are looping through all of these, there is not much repetition, right?
Do you… have a recipe book? Or do you just walk around with an alphabetical list of stuff you know how to cook in your head?
Bit of both. Generally what happens is that I come across a reference to a dish that makes me want to try it, then look up a bunch of recipes to get an understanding of how to make it, mix and match from the recipes I’ve found, then write up what I did. But I could probably buy the ingredients and cook at least half of these dishes from memory.
I also maintain a spreadsheet of what I cook every day which helps me not repeat dishes too often (e.g. I can tell you that it’s only been 21 days since I last cooked the Za’tar Salmon and Spinach Rice someone else asked about in another comment, so I’ll probably give it at least a month before I cook it again.
I also score (and get the wife and kids to score) each meal when I first cook it (to my satisfaction - sometimes it takes a couple of goes to tweak it). The ones I listed here are all ones which worked out ok and which I enjoyed. The kids inevitably score veg-based meals low but I mostly ignore them!
How about za’tar salmon?
I have a container of za’tar but don’t really know where to use it.
I love salmon, but have found hawaiian seasoning the best when grilled. how’s this za’tar recipe go?
Za’tar Salmon And Spinach Rice
- Make a thick dressing from mix a tbsp of sumac, 2 of za’tar, and 1 of olive oil.
- Season skin on salmon fillets with a little S&P (bearing in mind za’tar also has a little salt in it) then spread the dressing over the salmon. Not too thick, you don’t want a crust, but you do want the salmon covered.
- Bake the salmon in a 180’C oven for, maybe, 10 minutes and check it for doneness. It’ll vary depending on the fillets you have.
I like to serve this with a West African spinach rice.
- Toast some cashews and set aside.
- Gently fry some onion and garlic then add some washed rice, crushed vermicelli, a little curry powder (an African blend if you can find it, or a Jamaican blend if you can’t), and continue to gently fry until the rice is starting to get a little toasty and the curry powder fragrant.
- Add twice as much chicken stock as you had rice, bring to a simmer, cover, and set it as low as it’ll go.
- After 10 minutes, most of the liquid will have been absorbed. Take the lid off the pan and quickly cover the rice with chopped spinach then recover the pan, turn off the heat and leave it for 5 minutes.
- Mix the now-wilted spinach in with the rice, fluff it up and serve with the toasted cashews on the top and a good wedge of lemon per person since both rice and salmon love a good hit of lemon juice.
Kick-ass, man! I’ve been interested in all sort of bits and pieces this pulls together.
Maybe not the spinach: I don’t like it anywhere near that cooked but “not that long” is a trivial modification
Yeah, you could easily just stir the spinach through immediately before serving the rice. I might try that next time. Like I say, always tweaking!
I do a pasta meal like this. I turn off the heat and throw pasta and cheese in, like 30-60 seconds of mixing is sufficient to melt the cheese and wilt the spinach the way I like it.
— actually that discovery made me like cooked spinach for the first time in my life!
tyvm!
Beans and rice. I fry onions, bell peppers, garlic, and chili in a pot (sometimes carrots, celery, or leeks), add tomato paste and rice, and after a few minutes of toasting the rice, I add vegetable broth and cook until the rice is done. Then I add cooked beans (I use black beans, pinto beans, or black eyed peas at about a 2:3 ratio of beans to rice), spices, and sometimes tomatoes or nutritional yeast, depending on my mood and grocery stock. I serve it with lime, vegan cheese, or fried onions.
I’m experimenting with a similar thing, but with Lentils. Kind of a Dahl. I’ve recently learned about a mirepoix and I’m trying to meld it into as many things as I can. I threw blitzed carrot, onion, garlic, celery, and broccoli stems, in pot until softened, added tomato paste, a red chilli meal base I had laying around, seared the spices a little then, tin tomatoes, Lentils, split peas, (yellow and green), cooked till it tasted cooked, I have no idea. Added a tin of coconut cream at end, cooked a few more minutes. Turned out great, needed lemon, but I didn’t add that because a kid hates it. I also added Greek yogurt. Bloody lovely, needed more spice, but I have the spice tolerance to kill a buffalo, so if I’m cooking for other people, I try not to do that.
I’m determined to keep a container with roughly chopped carrot, onion, celery, to blitz and add to stuff. It’s been super useful. Seared it and Added it to a pumpkin soup the week before.
Household spaghetti recipe.
So happy that the spaghetti that was made for me I now get to make for my kid.
Nice.
I also inherited a family spaghetti and meat sauce recipe.
In total it has 5 ingredients and that includes water and salt. I love it.(The other 3 are the noodles, meat, and canned tomato sauce)
I make (vegan) bolognese, chili sin carne and similar weekly. It’s so easy to mix up with different ingredients, seasonings etc. I usually use soy-based mince since it’s the cheapest but I use other stuff like tofu, mince made from peas, mushrooms etc. pretty often too. They all give different textures and tastes so it’s an infinitely variable thing. Lately I’ve been making bolognese-ish with oat milk and mushroom slices added, makes it really nicely creamy and earthy.
My kids love chili, with or without meat. Especially if it has hominy or corn. And are crazy about “mushroom sauce” for pasta, saute a truly astonishing amount of mushrooms then pour bottled spaghetti sauce over. Like they want more mushrooms than pasta just about.
You might want to look into lentil-oat mixes for even cheaper mince substitutes. You can make it yourself and season it with no beef bouillon and it’s a high protein, high fiber, cheap and tasty option. It’s more time intensive, but it’s mostly passive cooking time.
Oh, all of that sounds really nice!
