Need help- any cooks out there?

Ashley's mommy writes:
| This may be hard to believe, but I literally stress over what to
| cook for dinner, because I can never think of anything.

I don't find it hard to believe, because that was me, until I started
planning meals. Planning a week of meals at a time is probably *the*
best thing I do for my sanity!

| I am really stressing over this, and I want to get a
| good rotation of meals going. Once I have a good week's menu, I can
| just repeat it over and over again. My meals are so boring. Tonight I
| am making boneless chicken breasts (shake n bake) with frozen broccoi
| and mixed veggies. BORING! Please help!

That's not boring, that's reality! Baked chicken breasts are a
perfectly normal main dish, lots of families have them often, and you
can vary it a thousand ways: oven-fry them on Monday, coat them with
barbecue sauce on Thursday, and next Tuesday try a pepper-lime glaze.

I don't repeat the same menu - that's where I'd get bored! - but we do
have some rules we try to stick with. We're trying to eat less red
meat, more fish, and more vegetables, and to "be smart" with
carbohydrates and fats. (In other words not to overdo either, but to
pay more attention to the *quality* of these than the *quantity*.) My
weekly menus start on Saturday because that's the day I usually do the
week's grocery run. Here's this weeks':

Saturday: burgers on oatmeal buns (baked from a mix), fries, and a raw
vegetable platter.
Sunday: we're invited to family for supper, so this is cook's night off
Monday: pepper-lemon chicken, brown rice pilaf, carrots and corn
Tuesday: frozen fish filets, (whole wheat) macaroni and cheese, green
beans and whatever other vegetable tickles out fancy that night...
Wednesday: lasagna and a tossed salad
Thursday: baked fish (whatever's on sale at our local supermarket's
fish counter that day), peas, cole slaw, wholegrain rolls
Friday: ginger chicken (Chinese-inspired dish with lots of
vegetables), brown rice

I don't cook lunches, or breakfasts except on Sundays for a treat. We
have wholgrain cereals and bread(s) on hand, and things to make
sandwiches, plus fruit and vegetables. (I try to keep some cut up and
ready for the kids to grab, but I'm not always so good at that...)
Only our younger son is too small to get himself these meals; everyone
else helps themselves.

It's not an exciting gourmet diet, but it's satisfying, and it's
homey, and it works for us.

- Cindy Kandolf, mamma to Kenneth (10) and Robert (4)
****** Bærum, Norway
Bilingual Families Web Page:
http://www.nethelp.no/cindy/biling-fam.html

It also works better for families with kids who are fussy and want plain,
predicatable foods. Like my son. Honest - I was very different as a
child; my
mom cooked up a storm, and I served all kinds of things to him as a baby
and a
toddler, but at about 2 1/2 - bam! It was plain chicken or plain fish and
bread
and fries. And nothing mixed together.

So we eat a lot of fishes (one of his first words "foish", he's always
loved it
so much, and it's healthy), fresh bread (one of his other first words
"bwe"),
pasta, steamed veggies. I roast chickens and turkey breasts and freeze
portions
for the future.

But all these ideas about interesting sauces and crock-pot stews - forget
it for
us. Unless I want to short-order cook something different for myself.
But I'm
also a practitioner of the Keep It Simple principle.

Banty (whose cooking skills have atrophied the past 10 years....)


Do you mean you think crockpot dinners are not plain? That's my husband's
only complaint - I just use salt and pepper - too bland. He likes Texas
Pete and tons of garlic. I'm not going to season an entire dinner to make
one person happy and to set the mouths of 4 other people on fire - lol.

In article , Sophie says...

It also works better for families with kids who are fussy and want plain,
predicatable foods. Like my son. Honest - I was very different as a
child; my
mom cooked up a storm, and I served all kinds of things to him as a baby
and a
toddler, but at about 2 1/2 - bam! It was plain chicken or plain fish and
bread
and fries. And nothing mixed together.

So we eat a lot of fishes (one of his first words "foish", he's always
loved it
so much, and it's healthy), fresh bread (one of his other first words
"bwe"),
pasta, steamed veggies. I roast chickens and turkey breasts and freeze
portions
for the future.

But all these ideas about interesting sauces and crock-pot stews - forget
it for
us. Unless I want to short-order cook something different for myself.
But I'm
also a practitioner of the Keep It Simple principle.

Banty (whose cooking skills have atrophied the past 10 years....)


Do you mean you think crockpot dinners are not plain? That's my husband's
only complaint - I just use salt and pepper - too bland. He likes Texas
Pete and tons of garlic. I'm not going to season an entire dinner to make
one person happy and to set the mouths of 4 other people on fire - lol.




Well, it's that typical crock-pot dinners have the meat mixed with potatoes and
veggies (the horrors, the horrors). My son isn't even much for plain stew meat.

Banty

I like to cook and have many cookbooks. However, sometimes I like to try the
recipes that are on the back of the products I buy (pasta, soup, veggies) or
that the manufacturers post on their websites.

"Ashley's mommy" wrote in message
s.com...
Hi,

I have a 2 year old daughter and a husband. I am a SAHM. The only
problem is I'm not good at it (meals, that is). It's not that I don't
cook well, I just don't have any creativity to even come up with meal
ideas. This may be hard to believe, but I literally stress over what to
cook for dinner, because I can never think of anything. I have bought
countless cookbooks, even the "easy meals" books and everything is too
extravangant. I am looking to see samples of what you all are cooking
on a daily basis. Lunch and dinner ideas. I think one of the problems
is we only want to eat healthy in our house due to fighting weight
problems. We try to stay slim, so we don't want to cook things like
fish sticks and tater tots. Could I trouble some of you to give me a
weekly example of what you are making for dinner? This may seem
extremely silly but I need help. If any of you want to offer the
recipes to some of your easy but healthy meals, I would greatly
appreciate it. I am really stressing over this, and I want to get a
good rotation of meals going. Once I have a good week's menu, I can
just repeat it over and over again. My meals are so boring. Tonight I
am making boneless chicken breasts (shake n bake) with frozen broccoi
and mixed veggies. BORING! Please help!

Well, it's that typical crock-pot dinners have the meat mixed with
potatoes and
veggies (the horrors, the horrors). My son isn't even much for plain stew
meat.

Banty



Oh gotcha. That's what I like

In article ,
says...
Ashley's mommy writes:
| This may be hard to believe, but I literally stress over what to
| cook for dinner, because I can never think of anything.

I don't find it hard to believe, because that was me, until I started
planning meals. Planning a week of meals at a time is probably *the*
best thing I do for my sanity!

| I am really stressing over this, and I want to get a
| good rotation of meals going. Once I have a good week's menu, I can
| just repeat it over and over again. My meals are so boring. Tonight I
| am making boneless chicken breasts (shake n bake) with frozen broccoi
| and mixed veggies. BORING! Please help!

That's not boring, that's reality! Baked chicken breasts are a
perfectly normal main dish, lots of families have them often, and you
can vary it a thousand ways: oven-fry them on Monday, coat them with
barbecue sauce on Thursday, and next Tuesday try a pepper-lime glaze.

I don't repeat the same menu - that's where I'd get bored! - but we do
have some rules we try to stick with. We're trying to eat less red
meat, more fish, and more vegetables, and to "be smart" with
carbohydrates and fats. (In other words not to overdo either, but to
pay more attention to the *quality* of these than the *quantity*.) My
weekly menus start on Saturday because that's the day I usually do the
week's grocery run. Here's this weeks':

Saturday: burgers on oatmeal buns (baked from a mix), fries, and a raw
vegetable platter.
Sunday: we're invited to family for supper, so this is cook's night off
Monday: pepper-lemon chicken, brown rice pilaf, carrots and corn
Tuesday: frozen fish filets, (whole wheat) macaroni and cheese, green

Do you make your own whole wheat macaroni and cheese? If so, how?

Thanks

Thank you, thank you! Everyone has been a huge help. I have made alot
of notes and will be ordering a few books that were recommended. If
anyone has a good meat sauce recipe for spaghetti, I would LOVE it! I
need to get moving on this because when my daughter gets older and wants
to have friends over for dinner, I don't want to be embarrased! Not to
mention no one in my family looks forward to dinner, because we never
have anything really great.

Ashley's mommy wrote in message
ews.com...
Hi,

I have a 2 year old daughter and a husband. I am a SAHM. The only
problem is I'm not good at it (meals, that is). It's not that I don't
cook well, I just don't have any creativity to even come up with meal
ideas.

This may be poor advice to the mom of a two-year-old (depending on how
demanding your child is), but file away in case you can use it later: I found
it was easier to cook if I made it a real interest of mine and made a point of
trying some new things.

It kind of sounds from what you're saying that you actually can cook fine,
you're just in a rut about it. If you take it seriously and plan and it starts
being in the front of your head (instead of getting shoved back like those "Oh,
gawd, I really should clean the bathroom today" thoughts), it gets easier.

But I do know that feeling of wandering around the supermarket thinking that
absolutely *nothing* looks any good.

I think the easiest meal I do is roasted whole chicken with a few herbs on it
(I usually shake a little lemon juice over it and sprinkle on some thyme),
baked potatoes, and some steamed vegetable. I don't bother with stuffing the
chicken or making gravy or any of that.

--Helen

In article m,
Ashley's mommy wrote:

Thank you, thank you! Everyone has been a huge help. I have made alot
of notes and will be ordering a few books that were recommended. If
anyone has a good meat sauce recipe for spaghetti, I would LOVE it! I
need to get moving on this because when my daughter gets older and wants
to have friends over for dinner, I don't want to be embarrased! Not to
mention no one in my family looks forward to dinner, because we never
have anything really great.

Sure -- brown one package of pork sausage, with chopped onions (or not .
.. .), add a jar of your favorite spagetti sause, a little water, some
extra spices, a couple cloves of garlic, and simmer until you decide
it's supper time.

(You can use ground beef, too -- but I prefer pork.)

meh
--
Children won't care how much you know until they know how much you care

"Banty" wrote in message
...
In article , Bruce and Jeanne says...

Penny Gaines wrote:

Ashley's mommy wrote in
m:

Hi,

I have a 2 year old daughter and a husband. I am a SAHM. The only
problem is I'm not good at it (meals, that is). It's not that I
don't
cook well, I just don't have any creativity to even come up with meal
ideas. This may be hard to believe, but I literally stress over what
to
cook for dinner, because I can never think of anything. I have
bought
countless cookbooks, even the "easy meals" books and everything is
too
extravangant. I am looking to see samples of what you all are
cooking

If you've bought "countless cookbooks", no wonder you can never work
out
what to cook: you have far too much choice. Anyway, most cookbooks
don't
tell you about the basics, which in the UK might be sausages one day,
mince and carrots, and grilled pork chops the next.


Yep. What I do is serve the same dinner on Tuesday nights so that for
one day a week I know what I'm doing. The rest of the week, I serve
those "boring" dinners following the same formula as another poster:
1 starch, usually rice or pasta;
1 protein, beef, pork, chicken, fish
2 veggies, usually some frozen veggie and salad

We don't have dessert everyday.

If I had to buy a cookbook, I would get Mark Bittman's Minimalist
Cook(ing?). I borrowed it from the library and found myself using it
fairly often.

While this formula seems boring, it keeps me sane.

It also works better for families with kids who are fussy and want plain,
predicatable foods. Like my son. Honest - I was very different as a
child; my
mom cooked up a storm, and I served all kinds of things to him as a baby
and a
toddler, but at about 2 1/2 - bam! It was plain chicken or plain fish and
bread
and fries. And nothing mixed together.

So we eat a lot of fishes (one of his first words "foish", he's always
loved it
so much, and it's healthy), fresh bread (one of his other first words
"bwe"),
pasta, steamed veggies. I roast chickens and turkey breasts and freeze
portions
for the future.

But all these ideas about interesting sauces and crock-pot stews - forget
it for
us. Unless I want to short-order cook something different for myself.
But I'm
also a practitioner of the Keep It Simple principle.


Yeah, that's another reason why we do the bland and boring method. DD's
taste has atrophied over the years. At 2, she ate pretty much anything we
placed in front of her. But as she entered preschool and got exposed to
outside influences (e.g., those other kids), she stopped eating so many
things, mainly veggies but also potstickers (she'll make them but not eat
them), tofu, well, any Chinese dish with sauces.

I tried crock-pot stuff but 1) it's not to my taste. I find it's *more*
timeconsuming because I would rather brown the meat first before putting it
into the crock pot; and 2) DD and DH aren't too crazy about most of the
dishes. Once in a while the crockpot dinner is fine, but not more than
twice a month.

I have much better luck roasting a chicken and making a separate sauce for
DH and me.

Banty (whose cooking skills have atrophied the past 10 years....)

I think I was a "better" and more adventurous cook when I was single.

Jeanne