Thursday 22 April 2010

Stuck in a Rut?

Somewhere on one of the blogs I read they wrote about falling into the habit of cooking the same old things time after time. I can't find it now...

Then I was at the Lit Phil Library looking through Good Housekeeping and found this article about 'Stuck in a Rut Britain?'

Apparently women here tend to cook the same meals over and over, sometimes even on the same day of the week, which is rather Leave It To Beaver, don't you think? I was struck by what they cook:
  1. spaghetti bolognaise (that's meat sauce to Americans)
  2. roast dinner (I think this means beef or chicken with roasted vegetables, which are very nice)
  3. cottage or shepherd's pie (never made one in my life)
  4. pasta (I would have said number 1 was pasta, but what do I know?)
  5. meat and two veg (this is the UK version of 'meat and potatoes')
  6. pizza (I'm betting this is store bought or ordered in, not homemade)
  7. stew or casserole (this is potentially a fairly large variety...)
  8. sausage and mash / chips (not a usual combo in my growing up years)
  9. curry (ie, something with an Indian sauce poured over it, probably out of a tin or a jar)
Our set meals seem to be
  1. beans in the crockpot
  2. rice dish
  3. pasta and tuna in white sauce with peas
  4. veggie stir-fry
  5. veggie omelette
  6. salmon puff
  7. kedgeree
  8. chicken or turkey casserole
  9. snack night: crackers and smoked salmon, hummus, boursin, eat til we're stuffed...
what are your 'go to' meals?

7 comments:

Jg. for FatScribe said...

well, my go-to meals for my sons are:

* Breakfast classics: cracked wheat sourdough toast w/ poached egg and hashed-browns

* Lunch classics: BLT or teriyaki burger w/ gouda (sp?) cheese and thick pickle slice -- both on toasted cracked wheat sourdough bread

* Dinner classics: salmon w/ asparagus cooked in virgin olive oil w/ sea salt, asparagus, and freshly cut fruit salad.

these are our go-to's!

Anonymous said...

Very funny. I do tend to cook the same meal on the same day of the week i.e. Mapo Tofu on Mondays but I don't think of myself "stuck in a rut"... In fact, I'm not a good cook and quite enjoy the fact that people will eat the same thing week after week. Though I do change sometimes but being the lazy me, not so much!

Shelley said...

Jersey Mom - What on earth is Mapo Tofu? I've tried at times to put more tofu into my diet but it's just too foreign and I've not made the leap.

Jg. - I'm very pleased to see you're still visiting. I like the sound of your go-to meals a lot...I'm salivating. You clearly appreciate good bread. Fruit salad is a staple around here. Bacon burgers, salmon, asparagus...we'll be right over, just in time for the next meal!

Frugal Scholar said...

Wow--JG's meals are very impressive! We could eat TexMex every day--bean burritos and the like. I learned to love this food when I met Mr FS, who grew up in California. In those days, salsa was not in every grocery.

On workdays, we eat oatmeal (the good kind0 for breakfast and bring a peanut butter sandwich for lunch.

When we don't have burritos, I like to make soup, usually one that can with bread serve as the whole meal.

Anonymous said...

Here's a link to Wikipedia. It is one of my kids' fav dish! I don't make the spicy kind though...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mapo_doufu

Pauline Wiles said...

PS - cottage or shepherds pie is fab, although quite a bit of work if you make the mash too. And frankly I think it needs HP sauce with it to kick up the flavour a little.

Pauline Wiles said...

I love the sound of your snack night, and I adore kedgeree, although I never actually make it.
My go-to options definitely include spag-bol and sausages (served with baked beans) but I also throw chicken & sauce in the slow cooker, and I recently discovered how easy it is to bake shrimp, too.