How do you USUALLY decide what to cook?

How do you USUALLY decide what to cook?

  • Shiny Objects - I see it, and I want to make it!

    Votes: 2 12.5%

  • Imitation is the Sincerest Form - I try it, I like it, I want to duplicate it.

    Votes: 1 6.3%

  • Force of Habit - I tend to make some variation of a common theme.

    Votes: 4 25.0%

  • Dietary Reasons - I have certain restrictions, and I have to keep to them.

    Votes: 2 12.5%

  • Culinary Adventure - I've never made it, so I feel compelled to try.

    Votes: 10 62.5%

  • Ingredient-Based Inspiration - I have an abundance of something, or there's a Recipe Challenge

    Votes: 8 50.0%
  • Total voters
    16
As my mom is working, she decides the menu every Sunday. And the fun part is that on Thursday she has a tight schedule so she decided a fruit salad menu for dinner.
 
Cinnamonita said:
It's fun to see the other answers on this poll. To be honest, I've lost sleep many times before when planning menus. Sometimes there is a two week period before an event where I stew on different ideas, often starting with a shape or a colour, pairing it with an ingredient or dish I have a craving for, and then seeing how I can combine them.
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In situations where I have more time to develop a recipe, my creative process frequently goes something like that. I often find myself turning over ideas in my head on my drive into work. Sometimes, an idea will pop into my head as my mind wanders during TV commercial breaks. I know how things go together, so I'll visualize combining ingredients a certain way, or using a certain process, and then mentally edit when I figure out something better. This is why I love the recipe challenge so much: it's a puzzle that needs to be solved, with many possible solutions.
 
If I am going rogue it has to be a cupboard challenge & something not done before. Love soups & tend to build from there.
Sometimes bloody awful but shit happens?
 
I guess the main two seem outwardly contradictory.

Variations on the tried and true - when I'm busy, there I go.

Culinary adventure... I really do enjoy cooking and eating things I've never made before.

In the best of times it's an interplay of the above.

Unfortunately now, where I live 35 minutes from the nearest supermarket, sometimes the last choice rears its head. What's on hand??? Getting hard to adjust to. Back when I was working, I could pass TJs, Whole Foods, Stew Leonard's, and ShopRite all on my way home, and slight detours could lead me to an Asian (Chinese/Indochinese) or to an Indian market.
 
I've ticked the last two, but it's a bit more complex than that. I currently have two reasons for cooking what I do, one is ingredient based, I am trying to empty an old chest freezer and turn it into a bait/fish freezer as I find chest freezers impractical as some food items end up being left at the bottom. So I'm semi randomly choosing an ingredient from the freezer and cooking something with that.
The other reason is that I'm trying to cut down on recipe books so I'm going through a few books trying all the recipes I want. keeping the good one and getting shot of some of the books.
 
Wyshiepoo said:
I'm going through a few books trying all the recipes I want. keeping the good one and getting shot of some of the books.
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The Hamlyn All Colour Cookbook is a keeper then! :D

Seriously though - I notice you cook a lot of recipes from it. Its a bit of a classic retro cookbook. I'm thinking I should seek out a copy...
 
Here it is a combination of dietary restrictions (a potentially fatal dairy allergy and we live 75 minutes from the nearest hospital that has an ICU, 45 mins from an emergency department without ICU) which ironically haven't restricted us at all but more than expanded our diet and variations of a theme (Ingredient-Based Inspiration) because we grow a lot of our own veg (except for this last 12 months) which means you get gluts of certain foods. I would have selected culinary adventure if 3 were allowed because being vegan (plus eggs) and loving a raw food diet plus dealing with the 'what can I replace x with' side of life does mean life can get pretty adventurous at times.

How do we decide what we are eating this week? We plan and we stick to it. So on a Friday night or Saturday morning over breakfast the weekly shopping list is written up and menus created. This week I have a vegan mozzarella on the list, a vegan cashew cheddar, a crème fraiche, 2 nights of leek and potato soup, 2 nights of (a new to us) vegetable chowder in the Vegan cooking recipe book on p62 and 2 nights of mushroom turnovers which is in BBB (Big Blue Book - one of my homemade cookbooks) on p68.

So if one of us fancies something, it does not happen this week unless there is a spare day (only 6 days are on the list this week but hubby is away for 1 night) then its a what is in the house to make that.... otherwise it goes onto the list for next week. If nothing has been added when we write up the shopping list, then we both select a cookery book and choose 1 recipe each. We work out how many nights it will make (and adapt if needed for 1 extra), we work out if it needs to be SNSSO'ed (in other words I need to adjust the herbs and spices to our tastes) and we work out what we need and what we have already in the pantry. We have a weekly budget of AUD $100 (roughly £50 GBP) for all grocery and household shopping between the 2 of us and we try very hard to stick to it. (At the moment we are succeeding).

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morning glory said:
The Hamlyn All Colour Cookbook is a keeper then! :D

Seriously though - I notice you cook a lot of recipes from it. Its a bit of a classic retro cookbook. I'm thinking I should seek out a copy...
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It's not a bad book but the recipes are most definitely dated and there is very little 'nuance' to the recipes. One of the advantages is that there is absolutely no problem with acquiring any of the ingredients, they're all quite basic. It's only my stubbornness that is keeping me going, the book is old and falling apart, once I have done the recipes I want I'll save the best in my Big Blue Book ( © SSSO) and dump the book.
 
Wyshiepoo said:
It's not a bad book but the recipes are most definitely dated and there is very little 'nuance' to the recipes. One of the advantages is that there is absolutely no problem with acquiring any of the ingredients, they're all quite basic. It's only my stubbornness that is keeping me going, the book is old and falling apart, once I have done the recipes I want I'll save the best in my Big Blue Book ( © SSSO) and dump the book.
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Which version do you have of the book? I can get used copies from Amazon very cheaply... there seem to be several different ones.
 
I also have somewhere a book called something like 'More recipes in colour' by the same publisher which is, I assume, the next in the series.
 
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