1. I use a traditional cookbook with recipe cards. I will print something off the internet to try it; if it is good enough to keep, I write it on a card and add to my book. If not, I throw it away. That way, my cookbook is only my tried and trues.
2. Fettuccine - it is worth it to make the homemade cream sauce, imo. Then, I add whatever add ins we want that day - grilled chicken or shrimp, bacon, broccoli, juanita peppers, etc. This is a similar sauce recipe with a quick search - use a whisk to make the sauce. cheeseknees.com/alfredo-sauce-with-cream-cheese/
We have made a ton of the SKinnyTaste recipes. The entire family likes them and you can favorite recipes that you like and then are saved for you on the site.
I am super old school, but this works for me: I print them out and keep them in a binder.
I have it divided into side dishes, rice dishes, noodle dishes, fish, beef, pork, chicken (if anyone remembers that we were vegetarian, we've started eating meat again in a limited way). And of course, deserts. Every time I make something new that the kids really like, I go ahead and print the recipe and over time, my binder gets bigger and bigger.
When I'm meal planning, I usually make one rice dish, one noodle dish, one fish, and one meat each week. (H always does tacos and mac n cheese nights, then we eat out once a week.) So I just flip through each section and pick. It's also really easy to note my adjustments to the recipe on an 8X11 printout.
When I first started to keep track of what to cook, I wrote down meal combos that we liked - as we went along. Once I had a good meal, it helped to have it written down for future inspiration. Simple stuff like chicken legs (roasted) with BBQ sauce, Rice-a-Roni, and peas. Once I had a bunch, I typed them up on a running list on a Word document. It was a few pages long.
For years now, I usually print recipes. I keep them in a 3-ring binder. (Also in a plastic sleeve, haha) I keep notes directly on the recipes for dates I made them (like Easter 2008), and short notes for favorites.
I’ve noticed that we tend to cook seasonally. Now that’s it’s warm weather, we rotate meats and veggies on the grill. Over the winter I rotated ground Turkey for main dishes like meatloaf (with mushrooms), tacos (with chopped peppers and onions), and meatballs.
Now that’s it’s been a bunch of years, I mostly meal plan a few meals a week and buy extra ingredients to stretch the leftovers.
Don’t pressure yourself to be “good” at meal planning. It comes over time. Write stuff down, repeat favorites. Easy, promise.
Post by NewOrleans on Apr 21, 2023 14:54:16 GMT -5
Paprika because I can copy any link and it lets me download and save the info. (Edited: I’d originally written Pepperplate which I did use for years until it wanted to charge 4$/ month)
Egg roll in a bowl
1 pound geound beef 1 teaspoon minced garlic 14 ounces shredded cabbage or coleslaw mix 1/4 cup low-sodium soy sauce (or liquid aminos) 1 teaspoon ground ginger 1 whole egg (I like more) 2 teaspoons sriracha 1 tablespoon sesame oil 2 tablespoons sliced green onions
1. In a large skillet, brown the pork or beef until no longer pink. Drain the meat if it's really wet. 2. Add the garlic and sautee for 30 seconds. 3. Add the cabbage/coleslaw, soy sauce, ginger, and sautee until desired tenderness. You can add a little water if you need more liquid to sautee the coleslaw down. 4. Make a well in the center of the skillet and add the egg. Scramble until done over low heat. 5. Stir in sriracha. Drizzle with sesame oil and sprinkle with green onions. Add additional soy sauce and sriracha if desired.
I LOVE the app My Recipe Box. It's like a purple and white icon. It's really easy to import recipes, you can create tags so like I have fast, easy, holidays, baked goods, whatever works for you! Theres a calendar so busy weeks I looks back and just duplicate a week where I had my life together, and theres a shopping list area which is really fast and easy to use. Then there's also a notes section on each recipe so I note what else I served with it or any adjustments. I tried so many different apps and systems and this is the only one that's worked for me.
Post by DotAndBuzz on Apr 21, 2023 15:09:30 GMT -5
For recipes I need to see the physical piece of paper. So whatever I find from any source, I print and put in a clear sleeve in a binder. Any notes I have about it (double salt, too spicy, too greasy, cut butter by half, etc) I write directly on the recipe paper. That way when I cook I don’t have to keep grabbing my phone, scrolling to a certain spot, clicking somewhere else to see my note, etc. It’s just there in front of me all at once. Will post a couple tried and true repeats in a minute from my computer (on phone now)
Post by sugarbear1 on Apr 21, 2023 15:12:06 GMT -5
Thanks everyone! This has been SO helpful. I have often gone into the "what are you cooking this week" threads and then gone right back out. I don't know why I find this so overwhelming.
I've thought about trying a meal service but between custody and busy schedules, I'm afraid I would waste food.
nicolewi, he was not a terrible husband but he wasn't great for me. Death by a thousand paper cuts, and this was one of them.
Post by DotAndBuzz on Apr 21, 2023 15:20:22 GMT -5
Sausage cream sauce pasta (a faux "vodka cream sauce")
1 lb ground Italian sausage - if it only comes in casings, just slit the casing and remove it. 1/2 an onion, diced
Brown those 2 together in about 2 tbsp olive oil
add to it: 1 large or 2 small cans of diced tomatoes, slightly drained (roughly about half, precision doesn't matter here, lol) 1 tbsp minced garlic (dried, jarred, fresh, whatever) 1 tbsp (or more, I don't measure) Italian herb mix salt to taste - maybe 1/2 tsp? If you like it spicier you can use hot Italian sausage, or add red pepper flakes.
stir that all together, let it simmer on low, while you boil up a pound of short cut pasta. Penne, bowties, rotini, whatever, doesn't matter.
about 5 minutes before serving, add in 1.5-2 cups heavy cream. If you want to lighten it up, you can do half and half, or even milk, BUT, you need to thicken it with cornstarch. So I recommend the cream or half and half.
Serve the sauce on the noodles, top with parmesan cheese.
It's not a low calorie meal, but it's a never-fail hit in my house, and SO fast to make.
Edit- for the kid who won’t eat things that look like a tomato - use crushed tomatoes instead of diced. When you add the cream, the sauce turns pink, and they’ll never realize it’s tomato based.
How did you feel about your own cooking? I'm not going to get hung up on his comment because hey, there are people who are bad cooks, or just not good cooks. But that doesn't have to be the case FOREVER. If you can read, you can cook!
What kinds of things do you all like?
I'm also trying to have less stuff so I got rid of my crockpot. This was a terrible idea. LOL.
To be honest I feel like I'm doing a pretty good job of managing kids, house, rental, and dinners all by myself. I'm fairly confident executing simple meals but I am quickly overwhelmed and intimidated.
My kids are pretty good eaters. Last night I made a miso salmon with rice and asparagus and they loved it. Vegetables are tricky. One child won't eat anything resembling a tomato with the occasional exception of very pureed spaghetti sauce. They'll eat almost any protein and love rice and pasta.
I have an iphone. I have in my notes section a note for recipes that have been a huge hit in our house. I have a nice healthy rotation in there. I have another note for my weekly meal planning. And then I bookmark the recipes on my phone in a folder I call recipes. I have sub folders for desserts and thanksgiving. If I have a recipe from somewhere other than online, then I will make a notation of that in my note - ie cookbook name, or photo from a friend. I also have an album of pics of recipes sent. I have a group chat with my besties and we share our favorites in our chat. I did not grow up learning how to cook and my mother was good at what she made but made only a few things. I had to ask my best friend how to boil water when I was in my early twenties. I also asked her if olive oil was a suitable substitute for vegertable oil for cupcakes lol. I branched out slowly when our kids were young and then once we renovated our kitchen and I got a large kitchen with lots of room, I became much more adventurous and more confident. I found I actually do like to cook.
My family's recent favorites have been creamy lemon chicken rice soup, a copycat panera cream of chicken and wild rice soup, cold sesame noodles with chicken, unstuffed peppers, skillet lasagna, smothered chicken (they renamed it mothered chicken, lol - this one is a crockpot meal), chili (crockpot), beef stew (crockpot), and chicken pot pie. These are generally quick weeknight dinners. Happy to share these recipes or other recipes on my list if you would like.
Thanks everyone! This has been SO helpful. I have often gone into the "what are you cooking this week" threads and then gone right back out. I don't know why I find this so overwhelming.
I find those threads overwhelming too sometimes! People’s menus sound so much fancier than what we eat. But my kids are little so choices are limited. Hopefully some day we will get back to more variety. I also wish those threads had more recipe links!
I’m old school. I have a binder full of plastic page protector sleeves and I print recipes and put them in there. When I make a recipe I pull it out and have it on the counter while I cook. I started using sleeve protectors because they kept getting wet and I’d have to reprint them LOL.
I started doing this for the ones we love. It's easier for me and, morbid alert, if I die my son isn't going to be able to find random pins or saved recipes online. They only go in the binder once I know they're favorites and then I make notes on them too. I have different sections and the dividers have pockets so I put in recipes that I want to try. I have a separate binder for baking/desserts.
I just recently did this, with a section for all the recipes I print off and haven't tried yet. It's already paying off - I was bored with what I'd been making and was able to flip through, finding recipes I'd liked and forgotten about.
And like others, I write notes on mine (e.g., "made for picnic and even Brother liked it" is on a vegetable side).
I even have a section specifically for gluten-free recipes, as I have a friend with a severe gluten intolerance.
My husband, the actual cook, has a 3 ring binder for stuff he finds online. He prints things out and organizes behind tabs based on type of thing (soup, main, casserole, etc) and then has a bunch of those plastic sleeve things.
For his cook books, he uses post it flags. There's a color coding system.
Post by SusanBAnthony on Apr 21, 2023 18:32:02 GMT -5
For saving recipes I highly recommend the Paprika app. It's free. You search for recipes on the browser within the app and then save them to the app. Plus you can then edit the recipe if you make changes, as the app saves its own off-blog copy of the recipe. Plus #2, it cuts straight to the recipe so you don't have to d al with 10,000 lines of stupid blog text.
Ok, staple meals: Mac n cheese (From scratch, I'll add a recipe below), Fried chicken whit rice and whatever veggies we have in the house, pan seared steak with mushrooms and onions (the kids don't do the veggies because kids, but they choose something else healthy) usually with rice but sometimes potatoes, several variations on miso chicken and rice (we eat a lot of rice), fried chicken and baked potatoes, rice bowls.
Mac and cheese: This version uses sodium citrate to emulsify the cheese and liquid to make the sauce, much easier than a flour rou. You can order it on amazon or specialty cooking stores. You will need a kitchen scale.
everything is optional except the cheese, liquid of choice, pasta and sodium citrate Chicken (cooked and shredded or raw cubed) Cauliflour (or broc, or whatever other veg you want) Bacon, chopped Pasta of choice, I like shells or similar A block of cheese, cut into cubes. Chedder is classic, of course, but almost anything will work ( I usually use 1.5-2 lbs of cheese to one box of pasta, a whole head of cauliflour and two chicken breasts) Water or stock or milk, whatever you want, about an equal portion to the cheese you have. (A one lb block of cheese will need 16 fluid oz of liquid/ 2 cups) sodium citrate mustard or whaever other spices you want garlic, chopped a bit of butter
Melt butter (or use oil), saute garlic until soft. Add liquid and heat but you do not want it to boil. Stir in sodium citrate. You use 3% by weight of the cheese+water. So if you have one lb of cheese, and 16 oz of water, it's 32*.03=.96oz. Add the cheese, cut in cubes, slowly and allow to melt in & emulsify. When the sauce is smooth, stir in everythign else, pasta uncooked. Pour into baking pan. Cover with foil and bake at 350F for about 45 minutes. Once the pasta seems cooked through, remove foil, top with optional additional cheese and breadcrumbs if you want, and bake until golden.
Rice bowls: I bought a Tomago pan to make the rolled eggs. It's easy but does take some practice. I serve with sushi rice, thin sliced cucumber, pickled ginger and whatever else I have on hand that goes.
Miso Chicken: Lately I've been doing a kind of curry twist. Coat cubed chicken in cornstarch and curry powder, add a tiny bit of soy sauce and mix. Pan fry in oil until browned and cooked. Make a sauce, one part soy sauce, one part honey, half part miso paste (originally a full part but it was too salty), I'll sometimes thin it with water. Dump sauce onto chicken in pan. The cornstarch will make a nice thick sauce.
I can give you the steak with mushrooms recipe if you ask, I love it the rest of the fam doesn't like mushrooms though. I also have a good recipe for a sesame dressing that's great on salads or noodles I know I've shared here before.
I subscribe to the NYT Cooking section also. I haven't made anything from there yet.
I do the print-outs-in-plastic-sleeves method referenced above.
I also do sticky notes in regular cookbooks. I find the internet overwhelming these days when it comes to finding something make. The cookbook helps narrow down my choices.
When I feel inspired, I watch "Food Wishes" on YouTube and have made some of his recipes.
I don't have a recipe to share at the moment, I've been in an anti-cooking rut lately.
This is super specific, but I have this recipe book that my mom made me for my wedding (in 2006, OMG). It is a photo album really, with slots for 3 photos on the front. She put a photo of herself, her mother, and my dad's mom in the 3 slots. The recipes that are written on cards are in the sleeves in the book (plus photos of the people who they are from); they're all the family favorites. There's even directions for how to carve a turkey, with a photo of my dad and uncle carving a turkey, lol. When I find a recipe I like, I print it out and stuff it into a sleeve. That way I always know where the keepers are. I have a few hand-written on paper from H's mom (she's been gone almost 15 years now); they're in there too. It's a really nice book.
ETA: Our newest family fave: thick-cut pork chops on the grill. Heat grill to medium. Soak wood planks for 30 minutes. Put planks on grill for 3 minutes. Use your favorite rub + EVOO on the chops. Place chops on planks and cook them for 12 minutes on each side. Let rest for 5-10 minutes, then slice + serve. We make Rice-a-roni long grain rice or egg noodles w/pork gravy (packets, found in the spice aisle) + a green veg with it. My dad taught me how to make them.
I have a meal planner book I got off Amazon. For lunches I track my workout and dinner I put what we ate, what website the recipe was from and if it was great/not good, etc. This way I can flip back for the ones that were super great when I need a hit. Family Favorites are pretty much any Sheet pan recipe from Skinnytaste and I find so many good meals on Budget Bytes! She has many skillet recipes that are quick, easy and complete meals in one pot.
If your kids/you like cheesy rice, this meal is quite literally done in 20 minutes. I add shredded carrots to up the veggie in take and likely add more broccoli and shredded cheese too... I'm not about to measure cheese when I can measure with my heart!!!!!!!!! Leftover ham is great, but I also found pre-chopped/diced ham in the meat dept and it's so perfectly quick to add in here, freeze extra for the next time or use up in scrambled eggs/omlettes.
I subscribe to the NYT Cooking section also. I haven't made anything from there yet.
I do the print-outs-in-plastic-sleeves method referenced above.
I also do sticky notes in regular cookbooks. I find the internet overwhelming these days when it comes to finding something make. The cookbook helps narrow down my choices.
When I feel inspired, I watch "Food Wishes" on YouTube and have made some of his recipes.
I don't have a recipe to share at the moment, I've been in an anti-cooking rut lately.
recipe notes: I don't bother with the fresh basil, I use a pre-made pesto by Rana, in the refrigerated pasta section, just dump the whole thing in, and you can totally use pre-shredded parmesan cheese. That simplifies and streamlines the cooking/prep process.
Paired with pan fried or grilled chicken breasts with this spice rub:
Note about the spice rub: I make multiple batches of it at once, and store it in an empty spice jar. That way I can grab a heaping tablespoon for 3 chicken breasts, and cook immediately. I'm not making it from scratch every time. I'm pretty generous with the seasoning, and use at least a tablespoon each time.
How I pan fry: 1) put chicken breasts in a plastic bag, and pound them thin. Will cook more uniformly, and faster 2) put maybe 2-3 tbsp of butter in a cast iron skillet, or stainless pan. Heat to melt the butter, on med-high. Sprinkle on the seasoning you want to use, directly into the butter in the pan. 3) add chicken after butter is melted and done foaming, sprinkle chicken with seasoning, and lay a piece of foil over top. just for splatter reduction, don't seal it up or anything. 4) I keep the heat somewhere between medium and medium high. You'll get a feel for it. I start with 7ish minutes per side, but check with a meat thermometer.
Heat and some sort of fat is the magic combo for things not sticking when you cook on a non-treated cookware (stainless, cast iron, etc). You could bake the chicken breast, but panfrying gives it better color and flavor, IMO. Grilling is my favorite, but if you're going for fast, this will definitely be faster than grilling.
I think you can create a recipe box in NYT cooking as well as make notes on changes you made or would make.
I print my recipes out and store them in a accordion folder by recipe type.
I also cook double batches of freezable meals-- enchildas, chili, stew, etc-- so I have back up when I need it. It can help for create a routine-- we do sandwiches on Friday-- it might be hoagies, corn beef specials or grilled cheese and tomato soup depending on the weather. Tuesdays I do something Mexican-- enchildas, nachos, fajitas. If I cook on Sunday, it's Sunday gravy or some other pasta.
Post by sandandsea on Apr 22, 2023 17:08:49 GMT -5
These are my two easiest no brained meals that everyone in my house will eat except ds2 who basically only eats butter pasta.
Chicken tacos - dump 2-4 chicken breasts in a crockpot with a large can of mild green Chile sauce. Let simmer on low all day until ready to eat. Shred and put on tacos with whatever toppings you like.
I use the leftovers for enchiladas later that week. (Mix with cheese, veggies, beans, roll in a tortillas, cover with enchilada sauce and bake at 350 for 35-45 mins)
Chicken tortillas soup - dump the following into a pot and cook until warm and mixed or put in a crockpot on low all day. Large can of chicken (like the canned tuna but chicken) Box of chicken broth Jar of favorite salsa Can of corn (drained) Can of black beans (drained and washed) Top with avocado, sour cream and tortilla chips