Can we talk food?

[NamasteBirches]

I'm looking for some dinner inspiration.
What are your go-to meals?
I'm also curious do you often scour the internet in search of new recipes or are you like us that just throw something together most nights with what you have?

We typically buy meat on sale so we almost always have chicken readily available (usually breasts or thighs) &/or ground beef. We freeze it & our most often meal is seasoning the chicken w/ McCormick marinades & grilling/broiling them & just making a few sides (rice/pasta/mashed potatoes/fries.) DS doesn't eat mashed potatoes though so that's always a bust.
With the ground beef, we'll do tacos or taco pie. Sometimes hamburger helper but the only one I'll tolerate now is the enchilada one. In the summer, we'd grill burgers a.lot.
For the most part though things get a little redundant & I wonder if this happens to other folks.
So what are your go-to meals? Maybe we're missing something & are just not creative enough.

[loveswaffles]

Following this.
We eat pasta a lot since that is one thing DD is guaranteed to eat. Then I try to switch it up with things like meatballs and potato gratin and veggies or something similar - meat, veggies and a starch. Or butter chicken. When DH cooks its usually tacos or wraps.

Basically I wander the aisles and hope inspirations strikes. I really need to start meal planning.

[NamasteBirches]

Dec 15, 2018 14:37:54 GMT -6 loveswaffles said:

Following this.
We eat pasta a lot since that is one thing DD is guaranteed to eat. Then I try to switch it up with things like meatballs and potato gratin and veggies or something similar - meat, veggies and a starch. Or butter chicken. When DH cooks its usually tacos or wraps.

Basically I wander the aisles and hope inspirations strikes. I really need to start meal planning.

DS likes his pasta too! Like dude, that's so boring! I grew up on pasta almost every night with an Italian mom & it's like ughhhh. We try to make pasta a side.
What kind of wraps does your DH make?
I do the same thing in the aisles but it feels harder because DH does most of the cooking & he usually just cooks what I buy so I feel responsible for getting ingredients for good meals. Lol

[loveswaffles]

NamasteBirches DH’s go to is a sweet chilli chicken wrap, with lettuce and tomato and cucumber and probably some cheese. Guy likes his cheese.

[Deleted]

We seem to cycle through the same five meals. Tuna casserole, shepherds pie, chicken with couscous/veggies, pasta with veggies, and baked or grilled fish with couscous/veggies. They're all easy and quick to make. If I plan ahead I'll make chilli or some other crock pot meal. Right now I'm trying to get our grocery budget under control while also making an effort to stick to a low sodium cardiac diet. I'm finding that it's not easy because now I'm running to several stores for only a few items.

[loveswaffles]

@threegiraffes thanks for reminding me of shepherds pie! I love it and never make it.

[NamasteBirches]

That's a good reminder. I have seem to forgotten we have a crockpot. We have a handful of really good recipes we make for that but ever since we moved, it's in a spot that's covered so it's forgotten about vs on the counter in the last house. I might just break it out today for dinner.

[loveswaffles]

Dec 17, 2018 6:55:18 GMT -6 NamasteBirches said:

That's a good reminder. I have seem to forgotten we have a crockpot. We have a handful of really good recipes we make for that but ever since we moved, it's in a spot that's covered so it's forgotten about vs on the counter in the last house. I might just break it out today for dinner.

Can you share some of the recipes?

[NamasteBirches]

Dec 17, 2018 7:42:33 GMT -6 loveswaffles said:

Dec 17, 2018 6:55:18 GMT -6 NamasteBirches said:

That's a good reminder. I have seem to forgotten we have a crockpot. We have a handful of really good recipes we make for that but ever since we moved, it's in a spot that's covered so it's forgotten about vs on the counter in the last house. I might just break it out today for dinner.

Can you share some of the recipes?

I want to do this tonight if I could get off the couch lol
It's really good. Kind of resembles chicken carbonara
www.familyfreshmeals.com/2014/01/slow-cooker-bacon-ranch-chicken-pasta.html
This one's also really good. We don't make it enough. I need to change that.
therecipecritic.com/slow-cooker-lemon-pepper-chicken/
We add ranch to the milk for this. Another crowd pleaser when we'd make it. It's been a while. I wonder if DS would eat it (he's been real picky these days.) He used to gobble it up.
realhousemoms.com/crock-pot-cheesy-chicken-bacon-tator-tot-bake/

Let me think what else we do. I feel like I'm missing some vital meals here.