I am getting hungry and should think of something to cook for supper.  How
do other grexers decide what to make for supper?  Do they open the cabinet
or refrigerator door to see what is available to cook?  Plan the week's menus
in advance and shop for them?  Pull out something from the freezer that they
made before (or a TV dinner)?  Ask other household members for ideas?  Eat
yesterday's leftovers?  Order pizza?  Look in a cookbook and then go to the
store?  

24 responses total.

I tried asking Jim what he would like for supper.  'I have no idea'.
We found frozen tortillas.  He likes comparing frying pans and will use two
differnet ones.

He also found two plantains and some grape juice.  Sometimes it is popcorn.
Do other people eat like this, or is it only if someone else cooks for you
most of the time? 

Jim says this meal was in honor of Fat Tuesday.  Everything fried.

When I can't decide what to fix for dinner I tell either STeve or Damon that
it is their turn to cook.  The cook usually gets to decide.  I will ask what
people want it I don't have a preference and stuff for a few different meals
on hand.  Sometimes I declare it a "fend for yourself night" and let them find
and fix their own.

I did try this.  The other cook said 'I have no idea what to cook'.  Fend for
yourself = popcorn.  

We have a weekly menu and make sure we pick up everything we need to make the
dinners on that menu when we take our weekly grocery shopping trip.

How do you go about deciding what to put on your weekly menu?

We have several approaches.  If there are leftovers we eat those and maybe
add something to them.  Today I added tomato juice to the leftover millet and
heated it up with what I found in the freezer (cauliflower).  For supper I
added leftover cooked fava beans.  If no leftovers, choose some grain or
potato or make noodles (whatever we did not already have in the last couple
of days) and add beans and vegetables to that.  We don't go shopping in the
winter so have a freezer full of things to choose from.  Too many choices.

Some people seem to repeat the same things every week.

The first time we did a weekly menu, we had to find a bunch of recipes to
figure out what we wanted to eat all week.  Now each week is usually a
replication of the previous, unless there is something we have gotten tired
of eating, at which point we find a replacement.

Lessee...
'tain't nobody else here to ask.  A few healthy items (green tea, bit of
tofu, small glass of red wine) are part of 'most every dinner, so i can
start with them.  I often buy or cook family sized quantities of food to
save money or time, so "what needs to be eaten up while it's still good?"
often dictates part of the meal.  Variety - after 3 days of eating on a
can of pink salmon, i want something different.  Balance - dinner should
usually include a protein, a veggie or two, a filler, etc.  Time & mood
may incline me to something fast/easy/basic, or experimenting with some
new recipe.

We plan our meals in sort of the reverse order from 9 - the basic part of the
meal is a grain or potato, then we decide on what vegetable(s) to put on it
and add whatever beans we have already cooked a pot full of.  The vegetable
varies depending on what is available in the summer.  In the winter it is
harder to choose from what we froze.  If there are no beans cooked and we are
in a big hurry, we have tempeh, or split peas or lentils that will cook in
1/2 hour in the pressure cooker together with barley or millet or rice.

Abc - do you ever get tired of eating the same thing every week?  Or want to
buy something seasonal in the summer?  (Maybe a supermarket has no seasons
but I do recall things like corn and peaches being on sale when available
locally.)

We recently went to a sparsely attended talk by the dietician in charge of
planning U of M residence hall meals.  She has been vegetarian most of her
life, and is pro-organic, and loves her job because the U is allowing and even
encouraging her to serve something vegetarian and something vegan at every
meal (often the VN offering is oatmeal or bean soup) and to buy locally grown
organic produce (including our friend's potatoes).  They also serve a bit of
ethnic food - this month pacific island is the theme.  Outsiders can buy a
meal (buffet style, all you want to eat) for $7 lunch $9 supper (approx.).

So we looked at the menus.  Every single day there is jello, and cake, and
cookies, and bagels.  Lots of hamburger and friend chicken - she says that
is what the students mostly eat.  Vegetables and fruit are available.  They
have learned to make just one small tray of the ethnic offerings.  I presume
Food Gatherers gets a lot of ethnic cooking from the U.  

When there are meat lasagna or meat pita, you can get what is probably a soy
imitation burger variant of it.

I've got a few things I tend to keep around, like spaghetti (and sauce),
potatoes, cheeses, flour tortillas (making wrapped sandwiches; keeps longer
than regular bread), salad stuff, etc.  When I go to the grocery I look for
stuff which is fresh, on sale, etc.  Meat I'll usually plan a bit more
carefully.

Re #10:  When I was in the dorms, the ethnic offerings were highly variable
         in quality, to put it politely.  I still remember Markley's
         "Szechuan Tofu."  Despite years of therapy for PTSD.  They do a good
         job on the stuff they know how to cook, and can do a surprisingly
         good job on fancier stuff if it's basically American... but ethnic
         could be pretty scary.

Re: #10 As soon as someone gets tired of a certain meal, it gets replaced on
the weekly menu.  Although sometimes the menu completely changes during the
hottest weeks of the summer, when turning on the oven for long periods of time
isn't desired.  Meals may be slightly varied based on what's on sale; several
weeks ago, feta cheese was on sale, so that now ends up on the pizza along
with the broccolli and spinach that's always there.  Seasonal fruits and
vegetables are more likely to wind up as something to grab for breakfast,
lunch, or snack, rather than get incorporated into dinner.

In the summer we sometimes just have watermelon for summer because it is too
hot to eat.  Maybe with bread.  We have not used the oven since we got a bread
machine 1.5 years ago.  You can set the bread machine to bake before sunrise
when the windows are still open.  

I pretty much look in my fridge/cupboard and decide what is available. 
My eating habits are pretty bad, actually. I rely on processed food a 
lot. I have been getting better though. I have a bread maker so I have 
been making whole wheat bread and I often have a slice of that at 
dinner. I have also just bought a george foreman grill so I buy fresh 
chicken now and then I have to cook it before it goes bad. I have also 
developed an *addiction* to steamed asparagus. 

I can see the value of eating the same meals every week. I might even 
consider trying that. It would give me more structure and probably more 
healthy meals. I tend to look into the cupboard and then choose 
whatever is the least healthy option ;)

Steamed asparagus, yum yum.  How about steamed brussel sprouts (which 
aren't spouts, I think, but cruciferous cabbages, right?)

Brussels sprouts.  Cabbages are crucifers, as is mustard, kale, collards, bok
choy.  A crucifer has a cross-shaped (crucifer) flower with four petals, which
is generally white or yellow and sometimes purple.  Shepherd's purse is a wild
crucifer.  Cauliflower is a crucifer - we eat the flowers not the leaves.

Do people who cook alone ever make several days' worth of food and then eat
it for a few days or freeze portions?

I sometimes make stews, chili, or a roast, put the leftovers in 
Tupperware dishes, and take them to work for lunch.  I don't freeze 
much after it's been cooked.  Our freezer is small and usually full 
enough with orange juice, meat, veggies and ice cream.

My mother makes soups by the gallon, several kinds at a time, and 
freezes them in individual-sized containers for her and my dad.

Like Lynne, I eat what I feel like from what's available at the time.  
If I ask John what he wants, it's almost always "rice".  He eats rice 
with just soy sauce for flavoring, and has chop suey or chicken chow 
mein or whatever else we have with it, on the side.

We put our whatever else on top of the rice, which soaks in the juices.
JEP's mother makes great soup, also cake ;)

I used to cook things and then freeze individual portions. Now I have a 
roommate who hogs the freezer. But after I get rid of him, I might go 
back to that practice. 

I tend to get a craving for something and then make it, but I'm also 
known to raid the cupboards and fridge for ideas.  If I'm going to make 
something that takes an hour or more (prep and cook), I have to plan 
for it.  My schedule is pretty hectic.

I love making lasagna or spaghetti and then refrigerating it.  Reheated 
Italian is divine.

I finished off the 4th day of a brown rice/hamburger/onion/black bean
dish for dinner today.  I like variety within a meal much more than
variety meal-to-meal, so loads of intentional leftovers are a regular
thing here.

   One of my days off used to be dedicated to making a couple big
batches of whatever I felt like cooking that day, and then I would
alternate eating the leftovers for the rest of the week.  I haven't
done that in a long time, though.  These days my favorite
thorw-together dinner seems to be a pile of raw vegetables, a hunk of
cheese, and sometimes some pepperoni slices.

Often times, I will get an idea mid-day, bounce it off co-irkers and stop off
for ingredients on the way home. The rest of the time, I have instructed my
partner that, as the pickier of us, she needs to help with making suggestions.

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