Finding meal inspiration drives me crazy sometimes. If I don’t plan at the beginning of the week I’ll look blankly inside of the pantry unsure of what to make and usually end up calling Jamie and telling him that dinner has been cancelled because I’m not sure what to make and I’ve already used that emergency box of macaroni that he’s thrown into the cart when I told him not to.
Four Places to Find Meal Inspiration
Kicking it Old School with Cookbooks
Sometimes, it’s nice to be able to browse through a cookbook, with pages. Lately, I’ve been browsing through Curry Cuisine to find inspiration to recreate one of our favorite dishes from a vietnamese restaurant downtown and have learned a lot about just how many ingredients you need to recreate those flavors. I’ve learned to make a delicious green curry paste from Curry Cuisine that’s crossed one more item off of the list of the things we buy already prepared. Also, I’ve learned new skills and techniques (and a great cornbread recipe) from books like The Cook’s Book. (You can get 30% off of those with this month’s Food + Drink Boutique deals at DK Canada)
Reading Free Magazines
The Kraft What’s Cooking magazine is one of the ways that I find something new to add to an upcoming meal plan. Using the magazine, it’s easy to find simple recipes that don’t have ingredient lists that are 99 items long. These come in the mail from time to time, and you can sign up on the Kraft What’s Cooking website to get it delivered to you. You can also find these free magazines at grocery stores from time to time.
Pinterest
Pinterest is one of those places that I browse through trying to find meal inspiration for Sunday morning meal planning. How do I use it? Well, I check what we’ve got in the freezer for meat and start from there. If I’m looking for a recipe for those chicken breasts I will put chicken breasts into the search and see what comes up. I’m a very visual person, so this method works better for me than simply putting in the word chicken to a search engine. You could also do this with a search engine though, just make sure that you’re image searching for recipes that catch your eye.
Magazines
No, I don’t pay for cooking magazines at the store, that’s crazy. Do you know how expensive those are? Instead I use Next Issue, the iPad app where you pay a monthly fee to have access to magazines like Eating Well, Food, Bon Appetit, Everyday, Saveur, Allrecipes and Vegetarian Times (there are some great side dish ideas in Vegetarian Times!). Unlimited plans are $9.99 a month, but you’ve got access to back issues of the magazines and you can get a month for free. On the iPad, I took screenshots of all of the recipes that I wanted to make.
When people give me cookbooks I use Post-It tabs to mark the recipes that sound like they might be good. Secondly I tear out any recipes from magazines or newspapers that I think the same of.
Then I build my grocery lists around selections from the clippings and/or books. If a magazine recipe is super yummy it gets saved, and recipes in my cookbooks get notations in the margin as to overall value or tips to make it better next time.
We rarely eat the same thing week after week in our house.
You can also download magazines from the library on your iPad.
Or, instead of Next Issue, you can access Zinio via RB Magazine for free with an EPL account.