THE RELUCTANT GOURMET COOKING COMMUNITY

[Reluctant Gourmet]

I’m wondering how many of you feel you are in a cooking rut sometimes? What I mean by cooking rut is you tend to prepare the same five, seven, ten meals week after week. Even though you may love to cook, own lots of fabulous cookbooks and subscribe to one or more cooking magazines, you go back to the tried and true recipes you are comfortable with.

Or how about you read a terrific looking recipe in your latest Fine Cooking magazine and think to yourself, “This looks great. I have to give it a try this week.” And then you never get around to preparing it.

I speak with a lot of home cooks and it is one of the comments I get all the time. What’s interesting is when I ask them why; they often don’t have a reason. So I thought before this Cooking Community could tackle the problem of getting out of a “cooking rut”, we should look at all the possible “whys”.

So my question for everyone is:

If you ever felt like you have been in a “cooking rut”, how and why do you think you got there?

I have some of my own ideas, but would love to hear what everyone thinks. Later we can come up with ideas and solutions for getting out of the rut.

I look forward to your responses.

RG

[gwen1945]

Good topic, RG! Let's see...

1. I'm a boring eater, so it's easy to be a boring cook. If a cheeseburger does the job, why experiment with the nice ground beef?

2, Lack of time and energy. This is a lot less of a problem since I semi-retired. And let's tell the truth, here: Cooking does take time and energy, no matter how many "30-minute meals" are presented on the Food Network. When I'm tired, I'm not going to get creative in the kitchen. I'm going with what I can do flying on autopilot, and what I know will turn out okay. Which leads to...

3. Industrial food is a lot easier than cooking. Even if you don't know the directions by heart, they're printed right there on the box. And you can be pretty sure of what it's going to taste like, too. Same for so-called frozen dinners and entrees, only more so!

4. Lack of appreciation. If you eat lunch from a brown bag or a lunch box, or that worst of all fates, the school cafeteria, then an evening meal at home is a pretty big deal. But that's not often the case anymore, is it? More likely, the evening meal is just a stopgap measure to get you throught the night until your next breakfast at BurgerWorld. When I'm cooking for those sorts of "customers," it doesn't inspire much creativity. Any compliments made after the meal don't sound too inspired, or inspiring. In fact, let's just forget cooking and order a pizza...

What have we come to? How depressing!

Gwen

[Reluctant Gourmet]

Great comments Gwen and all legit reasons. However, there are lots of simple, quick & easy meals you find in cookbooks and cooking magazines that don't take a lot of effort or time. They are just different from what we prepare day in and day out. So why are we not preparing these new meals. Sometimes it's just a matter of changing a few ingredients to a recipe we've been preparing for years.

Industrial food - I can understand how they are "a lot easier than cooking" but even with these foods, we tend to buy the same industrial foods over and over again without experimenting with new and different products on the market. I often use commercial foods to prepare what I call "shortcut meals". These are meals that use one commercial product along with some homemade ingredients resulting in some pretty good dinners.

For example, most of us doctor up a commercial brand of tomato sauce once in a while to come up with something better than the original. Or how about combining a home made sauce with a commercial frozen ravioli? There are limitless numbers of combinations we can prepare even with commercial products but how many of us try new and different combinations.

Great start. I'm hoping we get some more feedback from the rest of the community so we can create a master list of "whys" and then come up with some ideas to inspire us to cook new and interesting meals.

Thanks, RG

[jfield]

This is a really good topic, RG.

I agree with Gwen on her responses 1 and 2. We rarely buy industrial foods, and our dinner is actually our "big" meal of the day--it's really the only time we see each other (no kids).

As far as why it happens, I think that often our easiest meals are comfort foods--what we crave at the end of maybe a tiring or just plain crappy day. Food is necessary for life, but there is an emotional component that has to be recognized as well. And as adventurous as we might claim to be, most of the time it's easier to eat in our "comfort zone." That's not a bad thing; it's just what happens. Life is full of change that is often out of our control, but we can control what we put on our table.

I think another reason "rut-dom" happens is that those few recipes that we have learned by heart are still just recipes that we carry in our heads. Perhaps we should look towards memorizing techniques rather than recipes, then we can use that technique to easily cook whatever looks good at the farmers' market or grocery store or vegetable stand that day. Memorizing techniques can free us from the rut because we're not mentally running down the ingredient list: "Okay, I need 1 pound of potatoes...." while passing right by the beautiful butternut squash or parsnips. Having a recipe in your head is like shopping with blinders on: you might not be open to the possibilities of the lovely fresh asparagus when you're shopping for your Green Beans Almondine ingredients.

[ninjabut]

DH and I are actually going the opposite direction!
1) Get rid of the fussy kids! No more chili-mac, Cr of mushroom porkchops, spaghetti etc! Boot that junk!
This goes along with #1
2)Grow your own! Veges that is! I've been gardening and growing herbs since we quit smoking almost 7 yrs ago. It's amazine what taste buds can do!
3) Plan and cook together! DH is having fun learning how to cook something besides his "specialties"
4)Plan- We try to only eat beef 1x per week, fish 2x per week, usually chicken 2x per week, 1 day is junk and the last day we are trying a vege meal.
I'm making a fab chicken/mushroom/wild rice with other veges soup tonight.
A little cheese/garlic bread to get me through!
Good night! NT

[gwen1945]

Oh boy! This is getting fun, now!

Comfort zone--absolutely! That happens to me both in the kitchen and in the grocery store, as Jenni describes so well. And Nancy, how on earth did I manage to avoid thinking about my smoking? Of course! That's a huge cause of rutdom for me, I'm sure.

And yes, RG, I'll confess to doctoring industrial food, too. For example, Hamburger Helper Rice Oriental is helped greatly by adding water chestnuts and a little bacon. But still... How much harder would it be to make a "real" version of this?

I especially liked Jenni's idea about concentrating on techniques rather than recipies. Seems to me that a recipie is a good way to start learning, but in the end it's a rut all by itself.

But this idea of cooking with someone else...mmmm...Not unless the other person is teaching me something, or I'm teaching them. That might work. But I confess that I'm a short-tempered tyrant with anyone who dares enter "my" kitchen. I'm working on being a little nicer, though, or at least relaxing more. But no promises....

Gwen

[ninjabut]

Another idea I use is to cook a full recipe for 6-8 and freeze all that you don't eat.
I have a Foodsaver that can run as low as $99.
I cook homemade soup 1x per week and freeze enough to suppliment my in-laws diet so that they are getting SOME good nutrition.
If you cook 1-2x per week and cook a full recipe, after a couple of months, you'll have all sorts of home cooked meals in your freezer!
I find it better doing this than buying over salted TV dinners or pre cooked meals at the grocery store. I use my own herbs and/or salt free spices to try to keep things healthy(Mrs Dash)
If you're older, you can have your kids bag up a meal or 3!
It's also so nice, if you've had a crappy day and don't want to cook, to just pull something out of the freezer, make a little salad, it's home made and it's DONE!!!!!!!!
Somewhere there is a freezer cooking board. If I find it I'll post it.
HTH Nancy

[mrs.rv]

Dear RG,

I find myself in a cooking rut sometimes, because:

1. Yep, I have certain recipes in my head that I stick with... easy, fast. Hmm, these meals show up a lot.

2. I usually have mostly the same ingredients on hand (meats, veggies, pastas) so end up with same meals.

I admit it's planning (or lack of) that's my problem. Sometimes I might get stuck on some domestic problem/issue/errand during the day and dinner-time rolls around (and I'm tired) and I've nothing prepared. Then it's a scramble to whip "something" up!

(I try to use fresh ingredients, so do not rely on boxed items much.)

[Lizzy]

Yes--I am also in a cooking rut. One thing I do when this happens is institute Test Kitchen Tuesdays. Great night to try out a new recipe on the family. It's a lot of fun and takes out the blah of the beginning of the week--especially in the winter.

[joshcanfly]

I personally find the best way to get out of a rut is to shop out of it! When I buy the same basic ingredients week in and out, I can find myself in a cooking the same meals.

But by buying a different cut of meat/ veg you wouldn't normally get, etc it forces you to think 'outside' the box. Sometimes supermarkets are actually quite good for this :despite the mass amount of food they send to waste. I've recently emerged from a rut, thanks to some heavily reduced avarcados that I was loathe to think would end up in landfill, rather than stuffed on my plate.

[ninjabut]

I try to cook no more than one new recipe per week (so I don't get burned out on following recipes)
That way, when I make my grocery list, I only have that recipe to shop for. The rest is just the usual.
I have to cull my recipe pile! There are some that are used often and some that I won't use again.
I've gotta say it's so much fun cooking with no kids!
Nancy

[kell]

Rut according to Webster's: a fixed or established mode of procedure or course of life, usually dull or unpromising. Yup .... sounds like our normal, during the week dining. And for all the same reasons as everyone else with I think, perhaps, lack of planning as my top reason. Time and energy also play large roles. I do like to try different things on weekends when I don't have to work, so that's kind of trial time. We both enjoy it. And it does require a bit of pre-planning since the nearest grocery store is 40 miles from here. I do a bit of freezing which is a great idea! My BGF will be home in 45 days from her year and a half "on base" with her DH. I can't wait til she gets back. She's a great cook, loves to try new stuff on us, and inspires me to try more new stuff out on all of us, as well. Maybe rutdom will go away for a while

[ninjabut]

I'm also having fun learning about different organic foods.
I work with Spec Ed young adults as a job trainer at a chi-chi organic grocery store. The students are doing so well at their jobs, we have time to cruise the store and talk with the people in the different departments. We learn how to pick the best produce and about some produce we have never seen before! Same with choosing meat, dairy, fish and other stuff!
The bulk department is amazing! We all tried Quiona (sp) the other day. I thought it was a bit boring, then found what looks to be an interesting recipe from Allrecipes . I get a recipe each weekday from them.
I don't shop there alot except for sales and to buy bulk items that are healthier than the foodmax that I buy most things from.

[albriz68]

My number one problem is BUDGET! I have so many recipes I want to try and just can't seem to afford to buy all the ingredients. I can manage to try something once in a while but not nearly as often as I like. By the time I get the weekly basics (milk, bread, eggs, stuff to pack in lunches, etc.) its all I can do to squeeze in the dinner ingredients. I have a brother-in-law who provides eggs a lot of the time, but chickens go through periods of not laying very well so I don't always have the fresh eggs. We usually have our own beef in the freezer, which is good, but it gets old just cooking beef every night!

The next problem is lack of choices when it comes to fresh produce and unusual items (it took me forever to find shallots!). I know a lot of people believe that here in the heart of farm country we must be over flowing with wonderful produce. NOT! During the summer when gardens are growing you have quite a lot to choose from (if the weather is good for growing things) but the winter months are a different story. Half the time the stuff in the stores looks like what you need to throw out of your fridge!

Then comes the picky family. (Three young kids and their meat and potatoes father!) They always want the same stuff and hate it when I try new things. There have been many times I have been eating and thinking what I made is great and they are all eating sandwiches or cereal and complaining! Its very disheartening!

And, last but not least, there is my lack of "the magic touch" in the kitchen. Sometimes things turn out just like the picture and very tasty. However, the number of disappointments outnumber the successes. I guess you'd say I have a major lack of cooking confidence! That is one reason why I went to this website!

A very bored with food mom!

[novice_cook]

I have two main problems that keep me in my rut:

1) budget - can't afford to experiment as much as I might want to because that would be expensive!

2) fear - I admit that I am afraid to try new things for fear that I won't like them and that I'll be sitting there with a plate of food I don't want to eat instead of something I know I like!! I use my leftovers for dinners the next day, which makes it all the more important that I make something edible for dinner. After a long day at work, you want the guarantee of a comforting, tasty meal for dinner. No one's going to give that up easily. We are creatures of habit...