How do you USUALLY decide what to cook?

[The Late Night Gourmet]

This is a topic that I not only swear we've had before, but also that it was a topic I started. But, I can't find it, so here it is (possibly again). I had wanted to restrict this to just one answer, but I decided to allow up to 2 answers (I think if I allowed everyone to tick as many different answers as they wanted, we'd end up with an even distribution of everything).

I am prompted to start this thread after seeing @Cinnamonita's scallops recipe thread: I wasn't thinking about scallops before, but now I feel like I must pick up some on the way home and make them tonight!

Yes, I admit it: I go where the culinary winds take me quite a lot. I find this to be part of the fun: I honestly have no idea what I'm going to make next when my latest batch of coconut soup is gone.

 

[Morning Glory]

Its total adventure almost every day for me. In fact I actively dislike cooking the same dish again and rarely do! Its all about creativity, exploration, innovation and learning as far as I'm concerned. So, in addition to the categories in the poll, in my case I'd add 'to learn a new technique/cuisine'.

I currently have seven newly developed (!) recipes I've cooked over the last 10 days for the Recipe Challenge and not yet written up and posted. That's how obsessive I am.

 

[Morning Glory]

This is a topic that I not only swear we've had before, but also that it was a topic I started.

Please don't worry about that. Anything older than 6 months is worth posting again as it gets lost and we also get new membership.

 

[The Late Night Gourmet]

I currently have seven newly developed (!) recipes I've cooked over the last 10 days for the Recipe Challenge and not yet written up and posted. That's how obsessive I am.

Seeing how prolific you are, I don't doubt that!

 

[Morning Glory]

Seeing how prolific you are, I don't doubt that!

I don't have to go to work though. I'll bet you might be the same if you were retired. Just realised my poll votes weren't registered - now fixed.

 

[The Late Night Gourmet]

I don't have to go to work though. I'll bet you might be the same if you were retired.

I do think about this sometimes. Days when I have time to prepare things at a sensible hour, especially when I have the house to myself, it feels like such an impossible luxury. I sometimes have a nagging feeling that I'm missing something, because the pace is so relaxed. My daughter just graduated from high school, and my son and wife (who's a teacher) are off for the summer, so time is even more at a premium. Some day, though...

 

[rascal]

I guess I'm an odd one here, just the two of us so we kinda plan a few days ahead, I have lots of choices from the freezers. 4 freezers ( we are living out of freezers ATM. Too much meat) frozen meat beef roasts, lamb legs (6) chickens all sorts of seafood crayfish prawns samosas veg and meat chicken croquettes and heaps of other stuff. So we have a biggish meal Sunday (family meal) small meal like beans on toast Monday then biggish again Tuesday like chicken Kiev and veges and a sauce. Then quick meal Wednesday cheese on toast? And so on. We could survive for 6 months i reckon from our freezers. 1 freezer is 1/3 empty so I'm making progress.

Russ

 

[GadgetGuy]

Usually, it is because of Ingredient inspiration. I always like to try new things. To see how well I can make them!

 

[epicuric]

I can't narrow this down to two choices! The first two and the last two, probably in equal proportion!

 

[medtran49]

I can't narrow this down to two choices! The first two and the last two, probably in equal proportion!

Me too.

 

[detroitdad]

I do think about this sometimes. Days when I have time to prepare things at a sensible hour, especially when I have the house to myself, it feels like such an impossible luxury. I sometimes have a nagging feeling that I'm missing something, because the pace is so relaxed. My daughter just graduated from high school, and my son and wife (who's a teacher) are off for the summer, so time is even more at a premium. Some day, though...

I do a lot of my "experimental" cooking on Sunday's. I usually have the house to myself for at least a few hours. I can turn on some hard metal, and attempt to create some cool food. Usually my inspiration comes from this site. Occasionally I'll just to random google searches until something fancies me. Then I give it a try.

Last week I posted some parm crusted pork chops. Colleen brought the chops home from work, and I happened to have a block of parm that needed to be used. Marriage made in heaven lol.

 

[Cinnamonita]

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. For dinners I'm a bit more practical on a daily basis, but take a simple dessert like mango cheesecake—my mind goes, how could I make the serving the shape of a cube? What colour goes well with that mango saffron yellow tone? Pastel blue... what if I could have some whipped concoction of cream flavoured with roasted blueberries and maybe alcohol (gin? brandy?) and have a butterfly blue puff somewhere on there. How can I properly marry those saffron and mango colours? I think I need several shades of mango so how can I pull that off? And mix up the textures... some kind of toasted hazelnut crumble... no not hazelnut shortbread that's too strong for the mango ... or maybe that would work. Macadamia crumbs may be too neutral, though. And a pool of sauce to go under it? Mango is sub-acid, so what would complement that? A pomegranate syrup? No, too probably too pungent... and then I'll sketch a drawing, flip through pinterest on cubes and plating for twenty minutes, and it goes on like that until finally I settle on something.

I am prompted to start this thread after seeing @Cinnamonita's scallops recipe thread: I wasn't thinking about scallops before, but now I feel like I must pick up some on the way home and make them tonight!

If I inspired you to cook scallops, it's a true honour! If that happened, I would love to know how it went.

 

[Altena27]

The best part is when you are counting you have in stock one ingredient then you find out its not there, then you have to brainstorm to find a replacement to that missing ingredient, then give a leap of faith that your change is eatable.

 

[Morning Glory]

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. For dinners I'm a bit more practical on a daily basis, but take a simple dessert like mango cheesecake—my mind goes, how could I make the serving the shape of a cube? What colour goes well with that mango saffron yellow tone? Pastel blue... what if I could have some whipped concoction of cream flavoured with roasted blueberries and maybe alcohol (gin? brandy?) and have a butterfly blue puff somewhere on there. How can I properly marry those saffron and mango colours? I think I need several shades of mango so how can I pull that off? And mix up the textures... some kind of toasted hazelnut crumble... no not hazelnut shortbread that's too strong for the mango ... or maybe that would work. Macadamia crumbs may be too neutral, though. And a pool of sauce to go under it? Mango is sub-acid, so what would complement that? A pomegranate syrup? No, too probably too pungent... and then I'll sketch a drawing, flip through pinterest on cubes and plating for twenty minutes, and it goes on like that until finally I settle on something.

This sounds so like me! Except that I don't usually have events I'm cooking for - its usually just me and my partner or me and a friend, so I don't lose sleep over it. But almost everything else you say is similar. I keep a notebook with ideas, sketches noting colours and shapes, pairing flavours, textures etc. Its quite obsessive and I reckon that I spend the majority of my waking life (and sometimes dream life) thinking about how to create dishes. I'm always aiming at originality (which is nigh on impossible in the cooking world, of course!) so when I come up with ideas I always google to see if anyone else has already done it and if they have I try to change it.

You will also like this thread @Cinnamonita How important is food plating and the visual appeal of a dish?

 

[murphyscreek]

I definitely fit in to the shiny object category, but also the wanting to recreate dishes that have ingrained in my memory (for whatever reason) during travel adventures over the years.

My experimentation doesn't tend to be extreme in creating new dishes, but might do something a little different (as I did recently) making a classic flavored thai basil dish with kangaroo instead of beef. That type of thing.

I love tasting new flavours (shiny object!), so if I see or hear of something I haven't really tried I will want to have a go trying to cook it. The miso challenge on this site is a good example of that, whilst making fairly simple dishes so far, the flavour of miso is strong in my mind now and am often thinking of how to use it to better advantage.