what's your family's favourite food?

[SE22mum]

I am sooooooo bored with cooking the same thing week in week out - so looking for some inspiration! I love cooking but am really stuck in a rut.

What's your family's fave teatime recipes? I usually cook just one thing for kids and adults alike. Looking for simple, cheap, tasty favourites....puddings as well!

[sylviamaria]

Oh, I love food, so hard to choose favourites!cottage pie, pasta puttanesca, fish pie, Greek spinach pie, macaroni cheese (with blue cheese and mushrooms), Greek bean stew (gigantes).

Banana bread is a good and easy pudding. As is just fresh fruit with cream or yoghurt mixed with cream and honey. I better stop now, getting hungry!

[Pickle]

Have a look at the BBC Good Food website. When I'm planning our food for the week I decide on the types of meat I'm going to buy, then type them into the recipe finder and try to choose a different recipe every week using each type of meat. If you narrow down results by ratings (generally I've found anything rated 4 stars and up is pretty nice) there's usually lots of nice options.

[bornagain]

Here is my chicken rice recipe - one pot dish, really easy. I serve it with either green beans or a salad. I wrote it out for my daughter hence the v. explict instructions!

Turn the oven on to 180C

Peel and cut 2 large onions into thin slices.

Peel and cut 2 cloves of garlic into small bits.

Take the chicken pieces out of the packet and cut off any fat. Leave the skin on. 4 chunky thighs with bones in should be enough for 4 people (1 each).

Heat up a large pan that can go in the oven.

Drizzle some oil into it and when hot, put the chicken pieces in skin side down. Leave them to cook without moving for at least 5 minutes until the skin is crispy underneath. Be patient! If you try to move them too soon, they will stick to the pan.

Turn the pieces over and cook the other size for a similar length of time. When they are ready, they will be quite golden and crispy on the outside but still raw on the inside. Take the chicken out and put them in a bowl.

Next, fry the onions and garlic in the same pan in the chicken juices and fat. Keep stirring until the onions are translucent. Do not let the garlic burn (black) or it will turn bitter.

Now put in 2 small cups (size of a tea cup) of paella rice into the pan. Keep stirring. The rice will also go a bit translucent. Don't let anything burn.

Cut 2 red/orange/yellow (but not green!) peppers into strips, making sure that you take out the seeds first. Put them in the pan.

Take 2 handfuls of mushroom and cut them up if necessary. If the mushroons are small (size of small pebbles) keep them whole. If they are larger (size of conkers or bigger) cut them in half/quarters so they are all the same size. Put them in the pan.

Fill the glass you used to measure the rice and fill up with water. Put it in the pan. Stir. Repeat this with another full glass and a half glass. There should be 2 and half glasses of water in the pot.

Put in EITHER 1 stock cube OR 2 teaspoons of stock powder OR 1 tub of stock jelly. Stir again until mixed.

Turn the heat off.

Lay the cooked chicken, skin side up on top of the rice mixture. Also pour in any juice that has collected at the bottom of the bowl.

Cover the pan and put in the oven. Cook for around 45minutes to 1 hour until all the liquid has gone and the rice is nice and plump and juicy.

Enjoy!

[EmilyPie]

Yum!

[Mrs Tinks]

You can find a few on my facebook page https://www.facebook.com/pages/Mrs-Tinks/117296928314034

Try the Oven Baked Pasta with Salami. Easy and delicious! Also agree with the suggestion of BBC Good Food, it's great. This pudding takes 5 mins to make http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/5598/fastestever-lemon-pudding

[Vanessa3]

Here are some of our favourites that get rotated pretty regularly

-Stir-fried noodles with egg, chicken, fish or beef (whatever protein you have in the fridge). I always throw in peas/carrots or any vegetable they may eat or pick out!

-Fajita's (you don't have to make it spicey - just add a little paprika). I add tomato passata or salsa & loads of cheese.

-Chicken cacciatori (with rice or pasta)

-Chicken or Beef stroganoff (again with rice or pasta)

-Pizza (made with flat bread or wraps) my boys love making their own

-Burgers (Beef,lamb or turkey mince)

-Soup: prefect for winter- I serve it with fish fingers & crusty bread or crutons

-Chicken (or pork) schnitzel with polenta or mash potato

-Fish (either crumbed & fried) or white fish with a cheesy parsley sauce & potatoe wedges

-Apple & blackberry crumble

[Mellors]

I use this fab menu planning service - new recipes each week for Mon - Fri dinners to serve 4 (or in my case 3 adults and 3 children bulked out a bit). All easy, nutritious and good value. They also do a shopping list you can import straight into online shopping and they take advantage of any special offers so it saves you money.

http://menus4mums.co.uk/

[SE22mum]

wow, some amazing suggestions. makes me feel lazier than ever!

One of my problems is that I've only just started eating meat after 20 odd years a vegetarian so I really have no idea how to cook it! I tend to burn it to a crisp as cannot face the sight of blood.

I do love cooking, but I find it difficult to introduce kids to anything apart from firm faves. Still, will plan to introduce one new recipe a week and see if we can jazz things up a bit.

Anyone got a good recipe for a chicken pie? - a slightly strange request after watching Chicken Run!

[crystal7]

Love a food thread! SE22mum I also have no idea how to cook meat. I'm vegetarian but fish and seafood and chn and husband like meat so I make it for them. Would also love a chicken pie recipe!

Also my children are quite fussy. My 5 year old is slowly improving but still not keen on wet/mixed up food. Any suggestions that aren't totally plain (which she is happy to eat but I'd love her to try new things...) ??

[scareyt]

I love this beef stew - it's great for ex veggies or for cooking with a baby in a sling as there is no messing about frying anything beforehand - you just chuck everything in a pot and put it in the oven for ages and it comes out delicious and really tender. I get the butcher to chop up the meat and literally just tip it all straight out of the packet into the pot.

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/748653/smoky-beef-stew

[Goodliz]

I made this chicken tikka masala and it was very nice. Easy to make too.

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/12798/chicken-tikka-masala

Everyone ate it.

[bornagain]

Chicken pie is really easy to make from scratch. Rather than making a large pie (which you can, of course) I prefer to make small pastie-like parcels.

Chop up raw chicken and any veg (I like mushrooms, onions/leeks/spring onions, peas etc) into small and equalish pieces, about the size of large marbles. I use skinless thigh pieces.

Toss them all in a couple of tablespoons of flour seasoned with salt and pepper.

Roll out the ready-made pastry and cut them into squares - I think a packet rolled out, cut into 4 is the right size. Put a couple of spoonfuls of filling into the centre of each square and seal. I like to bring the four corners together to make an origami like parcel. You can use either puff or shortcrust, either is fine.

If you want to be showy, brush the top with egg.

Bake in the oven (180C ish) for about a half hour until golden. The time taken will depend on how large the pies are.

The meat and veg gives out a delicious gravy when cooked. Absolutely no need to add any liquid to the filling - so no danger of soggy bottoms!

[SE22mum]

mmmm, thank you! will try this weekend!

[bornagain]

Hope you enjoy it.

BTW a dab of butter in each pie before you bake makes it even more yummy!

[scareyt]

bornagain those chicken pies sound lovely.

[bornagain]

Thank you, scareyt. After posting on here I made them for supper just to make sure that they were as I remembered them. They were and the kids loved them.

[Anna M]

We have a few fishy ones to add:

Kedgeree is a favourite in our house - with grilled mackerel, boiled eggs, chopped any veg in rice with curry powder and chilli sauce to taste for those willing to go there.

Also coconut rice with prawns - a kind of thai green curry but low on the green curry paste and chilli for the kids.

Steamed salmon with dill, in a steamer above steaming broccoli/other veg, with potatoes boiling in the bottom part. Served with creme fraiche and watercress salad. Mine used to adore this but have gone off it of late. (I lament its passing so I'm hoping someone else will resurrect it!)

Am running home now to try out the lovely chicken parcel pies!!

[August]

Egg rolls, steaks, pork chops, pasta, I can offer you my favorite mango pudding practice

mango pulp Kocse about 250 pieces, with a mixer labeled slurry.

added to milk 150 g mango mango pulp into liquid, and then sieved to do so out of the pudding is smooth.

and then 150 grams of milk into the pot, add 10 Kejiliding flour, stirring slowly, slowly back into the fire heated, about 50 degrees off the heat, and slowly stir until gelatin powder has all dissolved .

plus a gelatine powder milk slowly into the mango mixture and mix well.

The pudding was poured into the cup, the cup on the table and gently knock it, slips out of bubbles, big bubbles with a toothpick prick, small bubbles gently wipe with kitchen paper Shi away. Cover with plastic wrap, then refrigerate and serve more than three hours in the fridge. I made four cups of volume.

[Audrey]

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/5846/greek-lamb-with-orzo

Our whole house falls silent when this is served up ......

[katgod]

Bornagain's chicken pies went down very well here this evening- thanks!

[bornagain]

Katgod, really pleased to hear that. You can also try a variation with a mix of beef mince, diced potatoes and onions - cornish pasties!

I love ready rolled pastry.

The other night I baked a super quick pudding. A sheet of the puff pastry with a topping of frozen mixed berries mixed with some sugar - spread so that it looks a bit like a pizza. Baked in the oven (180) for 20 minutes to half hour until the topping is bubbling. Great with vanilla ice cream.

[Mustard]

Pasta with ham and cheese sauce.

Make a roux, I use brown flour, add milk and French mustard, salt and pepper, when it boils and thickens add grated cheddar cheese, and add chopped up bits of ham. Mix together in pan or add sauce separately to pasta. I like linguine, or tagliatelle.

[canela]

any ideas for healthy-ish cakes and biscuits?

[srisky]

Banana cake - substitute some of the refined sugar with raisins/dried fruit (I've managed to reduce the sugar from 175g to 125g), use margarine instead of butter. It's probably still not THAT healthy but it's not all bad either when compared to most cakes! Hopefully someone will come up with an even healthier suggestion as I do like cake a lot :)