Is your family a locked in T&T meals or

[ellise]

Do you all like to expeiment with other types of food?

I have to say that Daniel and I are FOODIES, we like to try all sorts of things when it comes to cooking and eating.
Don on the other hand is mainly a TNT (Tried & True), although I must admit that I am very proud of him now that he will try different things now. When we met all he ever ate was Meat & Potatoes.

How about you guys? Same thing week after week or variety is the spice of life?

[sunshine]

We generally try one or two new dishes a month. . We're not very adventuresome in the food realm.

[teddymaker]

Tim and I love to try new things....Sara, our oldest, wants to be a chef, and she is a true foody...Jen gets stuck in a rut, but when you are feeding a very picky seven year old its not hard , he will eat calimari, and deer and he has even eaten wild boar, but give him a casserole and you would think you served him road kill!!!

[katieanne]

good morning ladies!! i live to cook and dh loves to eat. i usually try a new dish every week. i cooked some doozies but you never know till you try. dh is a hunter and i've had to learn to cook some strange thing...squirrel is quite a challenge.

blessings, kate

[Karen]

We are in such a rut meal-wise, but that's nothing new. I just really don't enjoy cooking all that much. I do like making holiday meals and desserts, but the everyday stuff feels too much like work!

[carrie]

We also get in a rut here, but it's because I am the picky eater. I have slowly been branching out and trying new foods, though.

[Admin]

We love to try new goods, but we have our favourites as well. I am not much on deer, squirrel, etc, but I am adventurous when it comes to trying every ethnic food there is.

[braided-rug]

Years ago I found favorite recipes for the game hubby shot. I did duck with anchovies, quail stuffed with grapes and wrapped in bacon, and rabbit with onions. We did cook some deer, have a book, but can't remember what recipe we used.

We have been trying new recipes to fit in with the food availability here.

[beth]

I've always enjoyed cooking for others, but since moving to NZ in 2002, I have become a good cook, and I enjoy cooking more than ever. It was a bit of a matter of survival - all my familiar stand-by foods were gone, so I had to get creative or suffer hubby's cooking!

For those of you who "don't enjoy" cooking - maybe try some new recipes, get out of your comfort zone, and see if that helps. It does for me. When I start getting bored and not really wanting to cook, I try a new recipe, and that kickstarts me again. Having to cook the same-old, same-old all the time would be a slow, torturous death.

Also - look at food differently - when you go to a restaurant or cafe, seek inspiration from what's there. Look at menus. Watch cooking programs. Read cook books - with photos, of course!

I have come up with somany meals and nibbles since I came here that I could never go back to just cooking from boxes and cans.

In fact, I have to go get started soon on preparations for a nibbles-and-drinks 'do' that we have tomorrow night. Might post the "menu" later.

Elizabeth, new to the group (and to this format of posting to groups)

[Admin]

Oh Beth, do post those recipes. Looking forward..And by the way, your doing great posting, Keep it up!!

[braided-rug]

I can relate to everything you are saying beth. It is hard moving and having to adjust the cooking to match, I imagine it was harder for you than me. I didn't move very far, but there are some foods that are always in the shop, but they are not the things I used before.

[beth]

Yeah, even when they look familiar, huh braided? I remember searching high and low for a decent mayonnaise here. I finally saw the Kraft Real Mayo label that I used in the US, and got three squeeze bottles of it, only to discover that it was NOTHING like the mayo I used in the US. ;-) I finally found a decent one but it took ages.

And, it took months for me to find cilantro. Ahem. I hadn't realized that it's also known as coriander. :->

Grocery stores were a huge adventure for me when I moved here. I am still discovering things I probably would never have tried had I stayed in Florida, where my cooking was much more basic.

[braided-rug]

Oh Beth, I have known about cilantro for a few months, I had to do searches on things when posting recipes. My family is not keen on cilantro. But we still buy it, at least for the moment. Which mayo do you like now? I went to a more mainstream grocery yesterday as I was in the regional centre, and I was amazed, they are getting more and more things I think. Even our shop has improved. Hubby tried to buy some simple sandwich meat the other day and they have nothing except very old-fashioned nob things or whatever they were called, I have forgotten. They don't go far enough for us. We wanted the larger one. He said that was enough to make him shift as he has tried a few times. They used to have more meat. We'll get there I guess.

[frugalmel]

I enjoy trying new recipes. Jason (dh) has gotten used to my experimenting on the family. He really doesn't mind being the guinea pig for my experiments (insert evil laugh here )

The kids do not like to try anything new. Seth (ds8) is very picky. The older he gets the less food is on his "like it" list. Drives me to distraction when I am trying to plan meals. Elizabeth (dd) is a mocking bird. If her big brother says he doesn't like it, then neither does she. GRRRRrrrrrr.

I love, love, love to watch food network on tv. Most of the time I wouldn't cook fancy like lots of them. I like simple fare, but its fun to watch them.

My dh is a pretty good cook. His step father is a chef by career, so he knows a few things from having been around the restaruant where Ettore (step-dad) worked. I keep trying to talk dh into going to chef school after he's done in the Army, but he just rolls his eyes at me lol

[braided-rug]

OK guys what exactly are your T&T or simple recipes? In our house the girls will always eat meat pies and sauce and mashed potato, or spaghetti bolognaise (meat sauce).

frugalmel can you get Jamie's School Dinners on that channel? The kids on that were throwing their dinners out all over the place!