Last night I made a Reuben sandwich for dinner. I made a Reuben for the first time a few months ago and now I've added it to the rotation. It's delicious. Now what about you? What did you make for dinner last night?
Let me guess. It was something you've made 1,732 times before. It was good. But you've had it 1,732 times before. You wouldn't read the same book over and over again would you? And even if you did re-read it (because it was great, or you didn't remember you had already read it until you were halfway through it) ... you wouldn't do that 1,730 more times.
If you did, someone in your immediate family would likely have you admitted. To a "hospital". And by hospital I mean an inelegant ward where you'll be forced to talk about your feelings with strangers who sometimes eat their own scabs.
So let's try something different.
I'm not saying you have to do anything ridiculously fancy. I'm not saying you should cook with dry ice and tweezers (unless you want to). Just ... try something different. Homemade bread, Thai food, fish, whatever. Just don't make it headcheese.
I swear to God, people who eat headcheese are one gross food item away from being scab eaters.
O.K. let's get those horrible eating images out of your brain now with these 75 FOOD IDEAS THAT'LL ROCK YOUR KITCHEN!
1. Strawberry Rhubarb Pie. 2. Chicken Pot Pie. 3. Avocado Lime Pie 4. Classic French Canadian Tourtiere 5. Chess Pie 6. Root Vegetable Tarte Tatin 7. Beef Bourguignonne Pot Pie 8. Swiss Chard and Mushroom Galette
9. Blue Apron's Crispy Chicken with Sauteed purple potatoes, kale and apples. 10. Homemade Chicken Broth 11. Moroccan Chicken & Sweet Potato Stew 12. Grilled Chicken with cumin spice rub. 13. Orange Chicken 14. Pistachio Chicken with Mustard/Dill Sauce.
15. Chicken Roulade (pounding a chicken breast flat, filling it with what you want, then rolling it up tight in plastic wrap and cooking)
16. Sun dry your own tomatoes.
17. Brine your cuts of meat (especially poultry and pork)
18. Chicken & Goat's Cheese salad with roasted red peppers. 19. Dr. Weil's Kale Salad 20. Classic Caesar Salad from scratch. 21. Beet Salad #1 22.The Best Curried Chicken Salad you'll ever eat. 23. Chick Pea salad. 24. Quinoa Salad.
25. NACHOS! (I made my absolutely sick on these last Superbowl) 26. Corndogs. 27. Chicken Burgers. 28. Krispy Kreme donuts 29. Fish & Chips 30. Homemade Cheez-its
31. Spicy Sesame Noodle Bowl 32. Thug Kitchen's Winter Vegetable Stir Fry 33. Cheater Pad Thai 34. Authentic Pad Thai 35. Rice Noodle Bowls with Crispy Tofu
36. Pumpkin Soup 37. Easy Broccoli Soup. 38. No Measure Potato Leek Soup. 39. Brazilian Black Bean Soup. 40. Szechuan Carrot Soup.
41. Goats Cheese & Leek Tart. 42. Mushroom, Leek and Fontina Frittata 43. Jalapeño Cheese Souffle 44. Aioli (garlic mayo) 45. Poached Eggs on Toast with Ramps 46. Scotch Eggs 47. Egg Foo Young
48. Homemade Pizza Dough 49. Homemade Pizza Sauce 50. Nutella Dessert Pizza
51. Penne Rigate with Rapini and Chorizo Sausage 52. Gramma's Spaghetti & Meatballs 53. Spaghetti Puttanesca 54. Pumpkin Ravioli
55. Rhubarb Crisp 56. Soft Granola Bars 57. Ricotta Gelato 58. Lemon Poppyseed Biscotti 59. 5 Layer Honey Cream Cake 60. Thug Kitchen's Vegan Chocolate popsicles
61. Frikadeller (Danish meatballs) 62. Cottage Pie 63. Pappardelle with Spicy Meat Sauce 64. Thai Style Ground Beef dinner 65. Cheesy Ground Beef & Avodado Quesadillas.
Two weeks ago I asked my readers to try something new and send me a photo of it. And they did! Including homemade vegan hotdogs! Another reader sent a cookie into space, which didn't really qualify as trying a new food, but it's still interesting. Here are a few of my favourites that were sent to me.
66. Steak with Chimichurri sauce & Fire Roasted Corn Made by reader Linda.
67. Chicken Chili from Weight Watchers made by Anne.
68. Dragon Fruit Pudding w/ coconut milk. Made by reader Connie.
69. Blue Apron's Crispy Brown Butter Gnocchi Made by reader Linda.
70. Vegan Pineapple Curry Tofu bowl. Made for reader Mary by her granddaughter.
71. Fried Oysters with Panko made by Jasmine.
72. Shakshuka (traditional Israeli) Made by reader Darla.
73. Blue Apron's Seared Salmon with pickled mustard seeds. (See Tara's post on her experience with this Blue Apron recipe here)
74. Banana Pancakes (only banana & eggs!) made by Mariaurora
75. Homemade Bread from my favourite bread book The New Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day. Made by Marie. There's no kneading and you can store the dough in the fridge for a couple of weeks and just pull out a bunch of it when you feel like making bread. It's a bread miracle.
Have a good weekend and try something new.
Except headcheese.
And I think I'd also like to add barnacles to that.
And probably brussels sprouts.
Other than that ... go nuts.
As a true Cajun girl, I have to protest all the shade you're throwing at headcheese. You've just not been eating the good stuff, that I can promise you. If you ever make it down to LA, it would be my distinct honor to personally take you on a tour of all things Cajun, Acadian, and delicious where your mind will most certainly be changed. Here's the place for the best headcheese in my humble opinion: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Bergeron-Cajun-Meats/157180177655243. Can't go wrong.
Still have nothing but love for you, though!
If she makes it to your area, I'll join you. I'm in SE Tx with the transplanted Cajuns.
I've been making a variation on that bread for months now. It truly is a snap if you have a scale and I haven't bought bread since.
I decided to Try some recipes and felt the homemade bread would be the best place to start since it complements all the rest. OH MY LANTA! It was so good. I baked two of the three loaves and served with a beef stew. It was so incredibly easy and so tasty. I will be sending you my new clothing bill even though you did warn me.
I have gotten so lost in the recipes and links I've just come up for air!
This is an amazing list and must have taken you weeks to put together! Thank you so much for all the new ideas!
Thank you for linking to my Frikadellar recipe, Karen! Love your blog and have been a subscriber for a quite a while, even though I don't comment ;) Love you writing and humor :)
Oh! I had no idea you were a reader, lol! I chose your recipe to link to because it's the same as the one I have from my grandmother which uses cubed white bread soaked in milk! A lot of them call for breadcrumbs, or other stuff. :) And you're quite welcome. ~ karen!
This is awesome Karen..I myself love trying new foods...and some weird foods..like headcheese...yum
Just made your broccoli soup for dinner. Yummy. Pinterest is my favourite for new ideas. I type in the ingredients I want to use and get lots suggestions. Some of which become standards.
OMG -those awful things that my mother makes every "special" occasion (new year, Easter, any guests from Europe etc) are called head cheese. Wow, I never would have guessed. There are never any leftovers of those-how odd. Plus of course, no other "special" meal would be complete without tripe and blood sausage. Can I come live with you instead, your cooking sounds and looks amazing?
the one time my mother made black (blood) pudding, it sat in a pot in the back seat as we drove up to the cottage one winter weekend, smelling absolutely delicious! But the taste??? My sister, dad and I ate all the vegetables that had been roasted with the sausages, but drew the line at actually eating those! My mum had grown up eating blood sausages and couldn't understand our sqeamishness! Wonderful memory tho!
Don't count out brussels sprouts. Sauted with garlic, onions and red peppers, they are delicious.
I'm so tickled right now. I scrolled right to the bottom as soon as I started reading this post because I had to say that I made myself a Reuben for dinner last night too!!
Ok, I'm going to go back up and read the rest of the post now.
Karen, you rock!! you posted my "get out of a rut" meal (#66) I feel so blessed ! So many good ideas that I will try many of them. I have already pined the granola bars and working my way thru, thank you for all the inspiration.
Great post Karen! Something for every taste and budget.And beautifully presented and photographed.
OMGOSH! Karen you ROCK! You just ROCK!
This post is an absolute goldmine! Pinned immediately and have already spotted several things I want to try. In addition to getting out of the food rut, new recipes can get you out of a cooking rut and inject some fun back into the process. We all get stuck in our routines sometimes. Thanks Karen and everybody who sent in a recipe!