How do you find new ideas when you find yourself in a weekly menu rut?

I was in a similar situation not too long ago. Perhaps this thread will help.

I grab the weekly ad from the local markets.

A fellow Jelly introduced me to All Recipes. It has become my best friend as I learn to cook. It allows members to create a menu planner, which then generates a shopping list. Ingredients on hand can be entered and, voila!, it recommends recipes that contain those items. The number of servings desired can be inserted and the recipe is automatically adjusted to fit that. There are sub-categories for Healthy, Quick & Easy, etc. The reviews of each recipe are worthy of reading before making a dish. They are chock-full of recommendations on substitutions and adjustments.

After each meal, I ask my partner to rate it. Would he want to have it again? If not, it isn’t saved to the site’s virtual recipe file. His biggest complaint so far is that I rarely make the same item more than once. In most cases, the recipes are doubled with the leftovers then labeled and frozen for him to take to work.

What I’ve learned is that successful cooking is an art that requires strategy, practice, time and common sense.

@dxs Thanks for sharing that thread. What specific posts helped you out?
@kritiper Assuming that the ads are a guide for what to purchase that are on sale, how do you decide what to make from them?

I look at recipes ad videos on the NY Times website. A lot of them are accessible for the average cook, and many are affordable.

My wife will sometimes look at restaurant menus and make cheaper, healthier version of meals that look good. I’ve also gotten in the habit of writing down everything we have for dinner in a text file on my computer. That way, I can look back at what we were eating when we weren’t in a rut when we fall into one. I know that doesn’t help right now, but it might help in the future. (It has also been helpful when we’re trying to make dinner plans and both of us just keep saying, “I don’t know… what do you want?”)

Other than that, you can set yourself little challenges. Take away something you tend to rely on—possibly an entire food group—and figure out how to make a meal without it. My wife and I go through phases of eating vegetarian, for instance, and during one of those we came up with a nice recipe for vegetable fajitas (seasoned and sautéed zucchini and bell peppers with crumbled queso fresco wrapped in a soft tortilla). Basically, you get yourself out of the rut by forcing yourself out of it.

@Pied_Pfeffer It was all a group effort, but I guess I’ll share some of the highlights that can be useful in this thread:

1. “Take chicken breasts of any size. Dip in olive oil, then Progresso Italian breadcrumbs on both sides. Drizzle a little olive oil over them in the pan and bake at 350 for about 25 minutes. Serve with a green veggie and pasta with butter and garlic.”

2. Recipes by ingredients

3. Wine sauce

4. “Mini Pizza’s: Brown English muffin in broiler. Remove from broiler. Add tomato sauce. Add mozzarella cheese. Brown again.”

5. Chicken piccata

6. Steak sandwich

7. The Kardamom post—just look at the whole thing.

8. Risotto

9. Frittata Muffins

If you want to break up the monotony when you feel you are in a rut, take a box, can, or whatever, and put different nations on them, German, Japan, Thailand, Sweden, etc. What nation is on the card you randomly pull out is the nation whose dish you will cook. All you have to do then is go online and find some dishes from that nation you believe you would enjoy eating and won’t break the bank to cook.

@nutallergy Look at # 7 on @dxs‘s list. That’s what she said, yuk, yuk. No wait, that’s what I said : P

I can’t say that I’ve ever been in a cooking rut. If you need more info, than what I wrote in that other thread, let me know. I can wax poetic about recipes and meal planning until the cows come home.

One other idea that I don’t think I mentioned there is get yourself on Pinterest. Then look for people’s boards that have titles like “healthy meals” and “weeknight dinners” and “meatless mondays” and “quick meals” stuff like that. I’ll pop over there and see if I can find some that might be useful to you. If you don’t already have a Pinterest account, consider creating one. That way, when you find recipes that you like, either on other people’s Pinterest pages, or ones that you’ve found yourself online elsewhere, you can save them to your boards. For ease of finding stuff, it’s better to categorize your food boards rather than just having one big board called Food (that drives me crazy, especially when there’s hundreds of things in there and all you wanted to find was the soup category). Make different recipe boards for soup, salad, dinner ideas, meat, fish, bread, sandwiches, burgers etc. It makes it easier to track stuff down later when you’re looking for it.

I’ll post a few of my favorite recipes from Pinterest here, then I’ll go for a search and see if I can find some good boards for you.

Here’s some good stuff:

Portobello Mushroom Burgers

Slow Cooker Vegetarian Chili with Sweet Potatoes

Hungover Noodles with Fried Egg (note: mangetout is snow peas, it’s a British term I guess)

Butter Bean and Mushroom Stroganoff

Southwestern Lasagna

Dragon Noodles

Portobello Mushroom Pizzas

Shakshuka

Broccoli, Mushroom, and Feta Quiche

Chopped Thai Salad with Sesame Garlic Dressing

Bean Salad with Artichokes and Feta

Asian Noodle Salad

Slow Cooker Split Pea Soup

Green Lentil Soup with Coconut Milk and Indian Spices

Minestrone Soup

Mushroom Calzones

Next are some Pinterest Boards:

Healthy Dinners #1

Healthy Dinners #2

Healthy Dinners #3

Healthy Dinners #4

Budget Friendly Dinners #1

Budget Friendly Dinners #2

Budget Friendly Dinners #3

Budget Friendly Dinners #4

Quick Weeknight Dinners #1

Quick Weeknight Dinners #2

Quick Weeknight Dinners #3

Quick Weeknight Dinners #4

Meatless Mondays #1

Meatless Mondays #2

Meatless Mondays #3

Meatless Mondays #4

These ought to keep you busy for awhile. Good eats : )

I watch Good Eats. I don’t much like to cook and fall into ruts based on what I know how to make and can tolerate preparing, but somehow Alton Brown gets me revved up about cooking new stuff.

I skim through some cookbooks or cooking magazines and try a few new recipes. One a week is enough to add variety. If one is a hit I add it to the repertoire. I admit that I have been in a food rut more than once to the point my husband has commented on it. Better yet, my husband has brought home recipes for me at times that he noticed in a magazine. Involve the family, which is also code for give them some of the burden.

Another thing I have done that can be very successful is pull out an old dish I have not made in a long time. Just last week I made breaded pork chops and you would think I had just come out of cooking school. LOL. I hadn’t made them in probably six months, and my husband thoroughly enjoyed the meal.

Geeky answer ahead:

I’ve created a mnemonic. It translates to “Pink Cobra – Unified Sustentation”. In German, each syllable is “coded” to a particular food group. It becomes:

Rice, Soup, Pasta, Sweet Meals, Potatoes, Sandwiches, Fast Food.

There is no “Pasta Day” for me. Instead, pasta is always preceded by soup and followed by a sweet meal (i. e. pancakes).

I have sample meals written down for each of my food groups, and I regularly add new ones. I find it easier to settle on dinner plans when I have limited my options somewhat. It becomes more of a challenge, and I love playing games.

I am enough of a rebel to ignore my rules, if necessary. I don’t turn down a friend’s dinner invitation because it’s “Sandwiches Day”.

With the entire www at the touch of a mouse, you are lacking for recipe ideas? You just aren’t looking.

I’m on the weekly mailing list for this site. They don’t spam or pass your info to others.

www.seriouseats.com

Lots of good menus and ideas plus their archives are great. They have some great writers.

Kenzi Lopez Alt has good stuff. He’s almost as good as Alton Brown.

You should tape Alton’s program, Good Eats. They’re in consistent reruns. None of his rec ipes are expensive or have weird ingredients.

He also has a great website.

www.altonbrown.com

On weekends, tape America’s Test Kitchen on PBS. Their recipes are all geared to the home cook and thoroughly tested for the best way to do things. They’re the TV version of the magazine “Cooks Illustrated”.

Also check out their website.

There’s a wonderful site started by a woman with a large family determined to do one Crockpot recipe every day for a yr. She also tells how successful each one was and whether the family liked it.

I’ll edit it back in when I check my bookmarks.

www.ayearofslowcooking.com

You can also find tons of stuff on the Food Network website.

Melissa D’Arabian is a mom who has lots of good family recipes. Find her on Food Network.

Be creative in the kitchen. I usually check to see what I have on hand to work with and experiment with different flavors and spices.
I have come up with interesting tastes.
I just use what is on hand in my kitchen.

I remembered one more thing we use when we’re trying to figure out what to eat for dinner, especially when outside: mountain chickadees, who often remind us we haven’t done burgers in awhile.