Do you have any different or unusual ways to decide what's for dinner tonight?

I am recovering from a nasty GI tract virus. My stomach is making the decision very easy; baked potato or scrambled eggs, washed down with a dry ,nutty, white gingerale.

@gailcalled I’d rather not try that method. Heard you were driving the porcelain bus. Get well soon. (Got to check that spelling)

@Adirondackwannabe:Spelling looks fine to me.

My latest cheating meal; cook some transparent rice noodles, ladle a quality organic marinara sauce over noodles, grate some fresh Parmesan cheese on top and add some fresh basil, if available.

@gailcalled That sounds good. I hadn’t thought of using rice noodles that way. I always have some form of marinara sauce floating around.
Lets add any suggestions for cheating meals to the question!

“Different” in what way? The way I decide on my meals is different from the way I decide on Willow’s. She gets whatever dry food is in the box (always Purina One) and a spoonful or two of whichever can we’re working on at the moment (beef or turkey).

But my way for myself isn’t hugely different, only the selections vary. A little.

Different than looking in the cupboard and saying do you feel like…..

No. I just know how much effort I want to put forth and can decide based on that.

I make a pasta and feta cheese dish. Kook any kind of pasta (spaghetti or any of the other thinner types), stir in as much feta as you like till its melted, add a can of stewed tomato chunks (the kind with orgegano), and sprinkle in black olive slices or bits. Good warm or cold. Very fast and easy to make, filling, mmmmmm good.

Magic 8 Ball. “Is it a pasta night?” Outlook Hazy. Ask again later. “Tacos it is!”

When we get our act together, we try to plan out a range of meals for the week or even month if we are being really good so we don’t end up going…. steak and salad? because it’s easy and we are tired. We also cook meals in advance and freeze them so we can pull a meal out, defrost and make salad or vegies to go with them. It helps somewhat to avoid that… same ol’, same ol’ meal for dinner rut. It saves us money too because we tend to shop for the meals we will have and so end up with less waste.

i get creative with what’s in the fridge/cupboards.

If I don’t already have anything in mind for dinner before I leave for school for the day, I usually just go through the fridge and see if I can nuke leftovers and make interesting combos out of them. Sometimes that can be really fun, sometimes it ends in tears.

Simple. WIGR! Whatever is getting rotten!

I tend to keep certain staples around at all times, so that if I haven’t specifically planned on something to fix, I will have several options. Being a vegetarian, my staples might not be the same as everyone else’s but I try to make meals that are suitable (and edible) for the non-veggies too.

Most of the time, recipes are fluttering away in my head (and I save a lot of online recipes in my favorites folder for future use) so I can plan meals for the whole week and then stop by the store and pick up what I need. Lots of times, I’ll try to plan different types of meals using the same ingredients so I don’t end up using only a little bit of something and wasting the rest (mushrooms, kale, potatoes, sweet potatoes for example) then I can make pizza, enchiladas, lasagna, or quiche with the same stuff.

My fridge staples are: low fat milk, eggs, cheese, mushrooms, onions, carrots, lemons, miso, tahini and lettuce.

My freezer staples are: blocks of cheese from Costco that I have cut down and freezer bagged in smaller sizes (so the night before, I can just grab one and let it thaw in the fridge) bread, burger buns and rolls, corn and whole wheat flour tortillas, frozen veggies like peas, edamame and spinach, frozen cheese pizzas (to which I can add a little or a lot of veggies, my faves being broccoli, artichoke hearts, kale and mushrooms) Trader Joe’s pie crusts (for pie, quiche and pot pies) and Morningstar Farms Meal Starters Burger Crumbles (which is basically fake ground beef which I can use for enchiladas, chili, burrito filling and for sloppy joes)

My pantry staples are: canned beans (lentils, navy, pinto, kidney and garbanzo) tomatoes, chopped green chilies, enchilada sauce, pasta sauce, artichoke hearts in water, dried pasta (usually spaghetti, penne and lasagne) vegetable broth (to whip up some kind of delicious soup) bottled barbecue sauce and salsa, boxed tabouli mix, kalamata olives, sundried tomatoes, nuts and Bisquick

One of my favorite go to recipes is home made macaroni and cheese, which I make lowfat by using ½ cup Trader Joe’s 75% less fat cheddar cheese mixed with ½ cup of a fabulous super-sharp cheddar cheese (I’ve tried several of Trader Joe’s fancy cheddars) You cook the pasta (penne or elbow about 3 cups dry) while it’s cooking you sautee about 2 cups of sliced mushrooms (I just used white buttons) in a little bit of olive oil with some chopped onions just until they start to brown, set aside. Once the pasta is cooked, drain it and put it back in the pan with a little bit of olive oil so it won’t stick together, set aside. In a small to medium sauce pan, put ¼ cup of Smart Balance (or butter) and melt it slowly (don’t let it burn) while you stir in ¼ cup of flour a little bit at a time, keep stirring rapidly (so it doesn’t burn, and keep it on low heat). You need to cook this for about 5 to 8 minutes to make sure the raw flour taste goes away. Then add 1 cup of 1% warmed milk a little bit at a time until it incorporates smoothly. Then dump in the cheese and mix over low heat until it melts. Dump the sauteed mushrooms into the pan with the noodles and then pour the cheese (roux) mixture into the pan and mix thouroughly. Oh yeah, I also added one crumbled piece of fake bacon (or use can use a real piece) to the mix. Then I poured it all into a casserole dish (I used cooking spray first) then I baked it at 425 degrees for 20 minutes. The addition of the sauteed schrooms and the fake bacon take this dish up to gourmet status, and it’s low fat!

This doesn’t answer your question BUT it is a different idea: make some rice (I use sticky sushi rice) and stir fry some veggies (Trader Joe’s makes great precut, inexpensive mixes of veggies. I just put some garlic and shallot in hot oil and add a little hot sauce and soy sauce), put them into a bowl when hot and cooked, top with the rice. Immediately put an egg in the hot pan – fry it (use cooking spray) and take it out just before it is completely cooked. Put the egg on top of the hot veggies and rice and maybe top with some soy sauce and sliced scallions.

You end up with a really generous serving of veggies and protein (I use two eggs). And since I’m on Weight Watchers, I’m careful of what I eat… this is the perfect dinner for me, and I’m a big eater.

Plus, nothing beats fried eggs over rice. Nothing.

I had potato chips tonight. I seem to have that for dinner a lot.

It depends on what animals I find running around my yard. Thanks to the Travel Channel and Andrew Zimmern you can find a recipe fro pretty much anything online now-a-days.