Repeat Recipes, New Recipes, Vague Recipes — How Do You Like to Cook?
Here's a bit of a weird question — do you prefer to repeat recipes, mix in new recipes, do vague “DIY” kind of recipes? How do you keep things “fresh” if you're using the same ingredients that everyone agrees are healthy like beans, yogurt, milk, vegetables?
There are no right answers here, obviously!
I used to have a lot of repeat recipes, but I'm… somehow super tired of them all. Even basic, low effort meals like tacos now make me kind of roll my eyes. I try mixing in new recipes but those are high effort and not always great.
At one point I had tried to have a rough theme that repeated for recipes — chicken or fish on Monday, soup on Tuesday, etc — and huge lists of things that might fit each theme.
I also was fond of a “roll for initiative” planner (link to the freebie from Imperfect Inspiration) that I had modified so instead of restaurants, I listed recipes to make instead. Old recipes, new recipes, easy recipes. That one worked the best and I should probably go back to it; it was the easiest way to plan dinner at the last minute. A lot of times dinner is selected by my son who uses an online choice wheel like this one. I should probably get back to the Imperfect Inspiration one instead.
I've also heard about what I'll call “vague” recipes — the Mark Bittman book, VB6, is great for this because the recipes literally list ingredients like “a grain, a bean, a green vegetable” in very rough terms. Then you can adapt based on taste, availability, etc. (The theory in the book is that it isn't hard to be “vegan before 6PM,” which is good for a variety of health, budget, and ethical reasons.)
On the flip side, my parents have a set menu 5 days of the week, repeatedly eating the same simple recipes and only rarely trying new recipes.
So, the question for today — how do you cook? Do you like to repeat the same recipes over and over, or try new ones? (Do you recipes you repeat so often you have them memorized?) Do you prefer to do meal subscription services to “choose” your meals for you? Do you prefer to wing it and do “girl dinner” (or freezer dinner, or cereal dinner)?
(This is actually not that different a question from an old one we had on vacations, where we discussed the pros and cons of repeating vacations versus trying new things.)
Stock photo via Stencil.
We’ve been using Blue Apron for about ten years so that covers most dinners when we’re home. (We’re usually out a few times a week at dinnertime. Otherwise, we find recipes in a variety of places. We like to try recipes from Bon Appetit or Food and Wine Magazine, both of which we subscribe to. (I made Bon Appetit’s bourbon/date pecan pie for Thanksgiving and it was a huge hit!) I like to try recipes I see online; Hubby likes to leaf through his very extensive collection of cookbooks. With all these options to choose from we seldom repeat, although we do have some favorite stand-bys. Right now we are on a “linguini with lemon and parm” jag because it’s super easy and we always have the ingredients on hand.
I read cook books like novels and own several bookcases worth, but tend to cook from things I find on the internet. I have a few blogs I follow closely. For baking, which I consider a science, I follow Sally’s Baking Addiction and King Arthur Flour. For cooking, which I consider a sport, Half Baked Harvest, Ina Garten, Nigella, Jaime Oliver, Mediterrean Recipes. I very rarely stick to an exact recipe for cooking, I always go off script at least a little.
When my kids were young and evenings were hectic, we had a formula and tended to repeat the same recipes over and over, but now that we are empty nesters, we tend to be a little more relaxed about planning. I like going to the store or the farmer’s market and seeing what looks good, my dh prefers more structure.
I learned to meal plan during the pandemic and stuck with it. We shop for a week at a time. We like variety, so I gather links to interesting recipes and then search them for ideas. BBC Good Food, Eating Well, Mediterranean Dish and Woks of Life are all free.