27
votes
How do you decide what to cook on a normal day?
I’m always struggling to know what to cook on a normal day after work. I get stuck in a rut of the same meals. I know I should batch cook more, but in general, how do you decide on your meals?
I let the whims of the world decide through the flow of the wind, the movements of the currents, the gravity of the universe to remind us of our place in the cosmos and the delicate balance of all around us - through the consideration and coalescing forces behind our propensity for being perpetually prominent and voraciously vestigial in our disregard and care for the reality we reside within, outside, around, left, arrived at, become, became, and are.
also, just, y'know... vibes?
I do a much less gracefully version of this where I whine, groan and open shut the fridge door many times, in the
storetone of an angsty teen saying "I don't have anything to wear", until food appears on the tableI do this exact thing! That the result is, invariably, Kraft Mac n Cheese is certainly a statistical anomaly and not evidence for a sentient (evil) universe.
I plan my meals out on Sunday so that I don't have to think about things on weekdays when I am tired. It also gives me the mental bandwidth to make strategic choices about ingredients I buy. I hate making the choice when I am tired and hungry, so I really push that onto past me to get figured out. After that I try to follow a pattern.
Monday is for a seafood dish.
Tuesday is generalized simple food (it is one of my in office days that overlaps with an evening workout, so I need it to be fast), typically something like a pasta or stirfry dish.
Wednesday is easy because we have dinner with my parents.
Thursday I like to do something more involved because I am remote, so its my day for a longer cooked meal or something experimental (new cuisines! braised things! grilling if the weather is nice!)
Friday is super casual like pizza, sandwiches, or takeout/date night.
Saturday I base off my day plans, so sometimes it is a Tuesday style meal, sometimes a Thursday style meal, or something something really big and new.
Sunday I host family dinner so I try to make a larger more showy thing, like a roast, paella, or bbq.
The scheme is that I have a pattern for type of food I pick for a day of the week, then I have a roster of tried and tested recipes that can go under that type. Because each type only happens about once a week, I only need to support a couple recipes for each to have a large rotation where we don't eat the same thing more than once a month or less. For example I have maybe 6ish quick go to pasta dishes, so we won't repeat until a month and a half goes by even if we have pasta every Tuesday.
That sounds like a great plan. How do you handle leftovers when each day has a different type meal to it? Do you just try to avoid leftovers by making exact amounts? Or do you maybe try to mix them into the next meal? I enjoy meal planning too, but a lot of it ends up being like 'I'm gonna make this huge pasta dish that way I can get like 5 meals out of it and it'll last me all week for lunch' rather than a different type of meal for each day. Though I like your reasonings!
It depends on the meal, but generally its built into the meal plan a little. There will be days where my dinner is planned to generate leftovers for lunches or another meal that week, or I will plan to make extra and then will freeze and reuse later on. But more typically I make a set amount with the goal of no leftovers.
Complete and utter chaos if I'm honest.
I am OK at cooking and I find it fine, no love no hate.
I tend to buy a bunch of shit when we run out, mostly on a whim, with no real indication of how long it will last us or what I'm going to make with it.
Every night my partner and I have a 10 minute discussion about what to eat, then I make something with whatever is in the kitchen lol.
Sometimes, occasionally, I get inspired and I decide I want to make something, like a pie, then I go out and get all the shit for it on the next trip, but honestly it's mostly just getting fresh stuff and cook whatever from the stuff I'm comfortable making.
I empathise with a lot of this. But I end up throwing out food which feels so wasteful! My partner is quite picky eater, which makes throwing things together harder too. Do you end up wasting much?
Honestly, the date on the food does dictate to some extent what gets eaten when. I guess that's the most meal planning I do!
We'll just note that "hey the chicken goes off on Friday so gotta eat it before then". Nothing fancy you know?
But I guess my partner and I go to the store more than one time a week.
I do all of the cooking, she doesn't like to cook and I enjoy it. I plan all my meals on the weekend, planning for Sunday-Friday meals, Wednesday we just do our own casual thing and we go out/order in Saturday. So usually 5 homemade meals from scratch per week. I try and split my meals 50/50 vegetarian/poultry. The most involved meal is for Sunday when I have the most time to prep. I also will usually make up any spice blends on the weekend to speed up the prep process.
When I was first learning to cook we subscribed to a weekly meal prep service that sends you all the ingredients you need plus a recipe card, I kept all the recipe cards from the meals we enjoyed and now re-create 1-2 of those meals a week. I have couple cook books full of Indian recipes which is my favourite cuisine and usually make an Indian curry once a week, they are also easy vegetarian meals using either lentils or paneer. Other than that we have collected a binder full of recipes from HalfBakedHarvest. Some sort of pasta meal is usually thrown in there and during summer 'BBQ something with Veggie' is a common meal once a week.
So all meals are planned on the weekend and then we go grocery shopping and grab what we need. There are always games of trying to share more expensive ingredients between 2 meals and I do large shops at Costco, splitting up and freezing a lot of things and just pull them out the night before as needed.
Here's a random sample week:
Sunday - Chicken Pad Thai
Monday - Paneer Makhani & Rice
Tuesday - Sweet Chili Tofu Bowl
Wednesday - Do our own thing
Thursday - BBQ Chicken & Roasted Asparagus
Friday - Shakshuka & Pitas
Thanks that’s very helpful, thanks for sharing. You have inspired me to try do more Indian cooking, which I also really like.
I very highly recommend The Curry Guy Bible for re-creating restaurant quality Indian curries, this is NOT simple quick cooking (Unless you already have your 'base sauce' made, I make large batches of base sauce and freeze it into usable portions, then the cooking is easy.)
Also 660 Curries but I personally find the recipes in this to be hit or miss and a lot more... authentic? Which may not appeal to more Western tastes, but some good stuff in there.
Online resources I use are Manjula's Kitchen
There is one more online resource I use but I can't remember it off the top of my head, but these are more simple recipes. The work is in building a full spice collection as there can be a lot of stuff, if you have a local Indian grocer like I do then it is easy other than the initial cost to buy everything.
I'll be real, for curries I just go the Asian store and buy curry paste. I don't have the willpower to make my own lol.
If you have the paste, it's like the easiest meal on the planet to cook and it's about a thousand times better than the junk store bought ready mixed sauces. (at least I see in the UK and some EU counties)
Thai curry paste (brands actually made in Thailand e.g. Maesri or Mae Ploy) is definitely easier if you buy it. My understanding is that many are made by pounding things that take a million years to turn into paste and ain' nobody got time fo' dat. Indian curries OTOH are pretty do-able once you have the set of spices. A shortcut for the "cook until the oil comes out" is to use tomato paste instead of fresh tomatoes.
What's the weather outside today? Cold? Rainy? Let's do a soup or stew
What do I have in the fridge? Lots of chicken? Let's use that for something, what's a good chicken dish?
What leftovers do I have that I should use? How can I incorporate that into a new meal to ensure they don't spoil?
Saw something on the internet? Oh, that sounds good, I'll do that.
I'm already considering what I'll make for dinner this evening. I have lots of chicken and ground beef, I have tofu and fish, but don't feel like eating either. Grilling is nice because it keeps the heat out of the house and it's fast and clean. I just made burritos with refried beans last night and I'd love to eat more beans tonight, but I don't want my family to get sick of them. I haven't made pasta in awhile, so I'll check my pantry and see what styles of pasta I have in there and then maybe make something with pasta, chicken and as many fresh veggies as I can.
How do you find your waste level? I often end up wasting leftovers, or not using things I have as I don’t fancy it that particularly day.
Depends on how much I cook initially, really.
If the leftovers equate to more than two additional meals, I'll probably end up throwing it away. My wife and I are at home most days, so we usually eat what we had for dinner the previous night. But leftovers can build up like this, especially if I don't every night, which I usually do.
This week I'll end up throwing away some tortellini and sauce I made last week, as well as some Sweet/Sour chicken I made last week, which we kind of forgot about. But, we did manage to eat up probably 70% of our leftovers. I do think I have some rice in the fridge from a week or so ago, so if it's not moldy and I remember to do it, I'll probably make rice pudding out of it.
Again, it varies from week to week. This week is a pretty heavy on waste, as mentioned, but often we get through all of it without having to toss anything. And yeah, we have a similar problem where maybe a meal wasn't the best thing in the world, so we end up not eating it a second time or maybe we were invited out to lunch and missed our leftovers from the previous dinner.
I don't batch cook basically anything.
When I am prepping to go grocery shopping, I will broadly sketch out what the meals for the upcoming week are going to be. This includes breakfast, lunch, dinner, and occasionally snacks for a family of 5 (during the summer at least when my oldest isn't at university). That means that on Sunday morning, I have a general idea what each meal for the next 7 days is going to be. This helps with two things; first, it directly addresses about 80% of the issue you are facing. I know what the options are for cooking after work, and it's usually going to be one of five meals. Second, it helps with planning out the groceries. One of the easiest ways for your grocery bill to get out of hand - especially with a family - is to go to the grocery store without a fairly specific list.
With regards to feeling stuck in a rut, I subscribe to a number of food related YouTube channels, and I enjoy branching out and trying new things. That said, there are definitely "rut" foods, and the way that I try to get out of them is to make them slightly different. Instead of spaghetti and meat sauce every week, it might be spaghetti one week then penne the next, and instead of a meaty sauce, it might be meatballs one week, or just tomato sauce with grilled veggies and parm.
Edit: I realized that my "decide before going to the grocery store" didn't really answer the "how" part of the question. I typically go to CostCo for groceries, so before heading out, I'll check what the sales are for that week. I often opt to get things that are on sale, especially for big purchases like meat. I also try to check the source of everything; lettuce or green leafy vegetable has been on my list for the last 2 months, but I haven't gotten any of them because they're all from the US and I'm not buying products from the US right now, so I have to make substitutions to my list on the fly. It means doing things like having cabbage, which I can source locally, instead of romaine, and since those are quite different, it's a whole meal adjustment.
How much time do you spend thinking about your meals for the week? I tried this and it was a great idea in theory, but I found it difficult to put into practice. I always ran out of time at the weekend and then putting it off until the next day.
I usually spend about 20 minutes or so, often over Sunday lunch. I think part of why it does not take particularly long is because I know a lot of recipes, and don't really cook from books, so I didn't really consider selecting recipes or whatnot. Any time we decide to make anything from a cookbook, the process takes so much longer, so that's something to consider.
I might recommend learning the basics of maybe 10 dishes that can be adjusted week to week. Some frequent ones in our house are tacos, nachos, grilled on the barbecue, stir fry, pasta, curry,, sandwiches / wraps, pre-prepared food. Then you can mix 'n' match and it doesn't feel as repetitive to eat, but the basic preparation steps are roughly the same. You end up with a variety of food, but not a big variety of requirements, which is nice. For example, you can make tacos with beef or pork or fish or haloumi or you can do various kinds of pastas with differing sauces. Having haloumi tacos one week and fish tacos the next can be pretty different from the perspective of eating, but pretty similar from the perspective of cooking.
I have a list of about 15 mains, about 5 one-pot meals, and various easy sides to pick from. I'm in the habit of grocery shopping about 4 days a week, and I may flash-decide on something based on what's on sale or what looks good. Once or twice a month I try to get to the fish store and get some local salmon -- a splurge, but it cooks up beautifully. I vary things so we're not eating chicken 5 days in a row. I also have a chest freezer so I can stock up on lamb racks at Costco and bags of shrimp, so there's always something available if I'm feeling like I need something specially nice.
I'm pretty bad at the meal prep thing where you work up meals that will use up all of that parsley or cilantro bun. I try, but these days I tend to omit garnish type things because I've wasted so much of them. Nearly everything I cook, though, I make enough for a couple of meals so I can throw it in the freezer for future lazy me.
I also get new recipes (typically Serious Eats or Chef John) in various feeds and check out those that sound interesting.
What are your go to one pot dishes?
You can get frozen garnishes which are useful for avoiding waste (or grow fresh herbs in the garden?).
Just as clarification by one pot I generally mean the protein and veggies are in one pot. It might also include the starch, but sometimes rice is cooked separately. Yang chow fried rice is the easiest one, there's pot roast, lamb sabzi, palak paneer or palak lamb, and gumbo (usually andouille and shrimp). Chef John has a nice recipe for a lentil curry which I use as a base that you can throw anything into. I also often make Bobby Flay's chicken tagine with garbanzos and apricots
I have a little patch of green onions and I also regularly make use of the rosemary, lemon, curry leaf, and bay leaf growing in my yard. I seem to have trouble keeping smaller herbs alive, though last year I did very well with keeping a basil going.
Oh, one more I totally forgot: I cook pearl couscous about halfway, add a protein and throw on a bunch of handfuls of baby spinach. Re-lid and let it steam down. Mix it all up (baby spinach can get clumpy if you let it cook together too long) and let any remaining liquid simmer off. Husband has been using cooked chicken strips in a bag for the protein, which is kinda against my personal principles, but he's not a cook, or rather a very new cook, so he's allowed ;) I think it's great he's learning
I pick up a bag of pizza dough and sauce and toppings once a week. We make a pizza once a week, whenever the kids want to help with that. It doesn't take very long so it is an easy "whenever" meal.
I always have some curry paste options in the fridge along with some cans of coconut milk so I can make curry out of whatever random crap I have in the fridge (I am not above hot dog and green bean curry).
As far as bulk prep goes, I mostly aim for bulk sauces. I make large pots of pasta sauce or chili or whatever because I find that those reheat well. If I am feeling lazy and in a hurry, a microwaved potato and a baggie full of chili is a great meal for low effort.
Interesting, I’ve never thought of making pizza myself. I used to use sauces, but I’m trying to avoid ultra processed foods and most of them have a few more additives than I’d like.
Pasta with jarred sauce, or rice and beans, or impossible nuggets with broccoli are our "can't brain, need food" easy dinners. Sometimes we will pull out everything in the freezer and just eat out of it, or I will actually do some sort of cooking if we have food and I have the energy.
Tonight we're having chicken and bean pesto pasta with roasted broccoli. If I feel like it, I might also cut up the mushrooms I got and throw those in the pasta too lol.
Does roasted broccoli work well? I’ve only ever fried, boiled or steamed it
Roasting vegetables feels like cheating for the flavor to effort ratio and how hard it is to screw up. Toss veg in a little oil, spread in a single-ish layer on a sheet tray, roast until it’s getting a little charred, done. Maybe a little mix at some point for more even cooking, but not essential if we’re not being picky. Works with practically any veg, can handle a large batch, can roast right alongside a main if you’ve got two oven racks. The result is great as is, or you could add spices, grate some cheese on at the end, dress with a little balsamic,
Oh yes! I's delicious! it's like roasting any other vegetable. It gets slightly sweeter, and also caramelized. mmmmm
We usually hit the grocery store every Saturday morning, so either on Friday night or early Saturday morning we'll go through a random selection of cookbooks (of which we have many), and pull out some potential ideas that sound good. Once we have several options, we'll weed them down into a set of six/seven that we can do across the week. Typically there'll be at least one slow cooker meal, some quicker options for nights when we have to take the children to extracurriculars, and in general make sure we lean towards lean meats and vegetarian options. The ingredients to support those meals are what we buy at the store. This way no particular decisions have to be made the night of the meal, beyond calculating the timing of when to start cooking.
In my house, we tend to have a relatively 'core' set of perishables and a heavily stocked pantry of spices/ingredients, so the same(ish) veggies can be used in, say, soup or stew or pasta sauce or stir fries etc.
For instance, a very similar list of ingredients can make a red sauce or chili by swapping out the spices. Or, similar veggies I might julienne, stir fry, and serve with rice could instead be chopped large, roasted and served with sausage and mashed potatoes. This gives us a decent balance between flexibility and ease, without having to meal plan (I could never!).
I've gotten into ruts, but mostly because of a lack of time/energy. To get out of those ruts, I might buy a different ingredient and search ways to cook with it. Or, search different cultural cuisines to inspire me to use my typical ingredients in different styles. As an example, recently I made a moroccan chicken and squash 'tagine', instead of a more 'western' style chicken and veg stew.
I live very close to grocery stores now, so last-minute decisions are easier. But even when I lived quite far from one it was still feasible, I just bulk purchaed more and stored more perishables in the freezer.
My energy problems are a bit different in ways. But maybe mildly similar.
I am fatigued all the time. Some days are better or worse than others.
Dialysis days in particular I try to mnimize what I do.
I also don't mind leftovers - although my wife hates them.
So I will try to get groceries around once per week with about that much food planned generally out - not which meals when, but just avalability.
So right now, I have curry chicken - mixed with rice ready to heat and eat, four servings. Enough to mix with rice in the freezer for about 6 servings - wil be used in future. I also made stroganoff and there are three servings ready to heat in the fridge, with again about double that of the base (i.e. sans sour cream or pasta) in the freezer.
I have pasta and spaghetti sauce along with meatballs. Those are all stable, and things I tend to keep on hand as we'll have around weekly or biweekly.
I keep eggs, frozen sausage patties, and currently naan on hand for breakfasts because in literally 10-12 minutes from rolling into the kitchen I can have breakfast made for my wife. (I don't normally eat breakfast).
I have a couple of packages of mac and cheese, and I have velveeta onhand which is rare, so I plan to enhance that mac at some point. Next grocery I'll get a can of Wolf brand chili and fritos for more frito pie - been a couple of weeks. Notnormally in the rotation, but nostalgia hit the other day. Terrible for you but tasty.
Rachel will often get a couple of subs worth of turkey - this last time she picked up a bit of ham. So I made sub for her - turkey, american cheese, mayo on a sub roll. I grew up with occasionally having a special sandwich with ham, swiss, bread and butter pickles, with mayo and mustard and lettuce and tomato. Didn't have the latter two, but it's still so tasty and nostalgic on the Pepperidge Farm pumpernickle bread.
But I also eat a lot of less tradtional meals, I think. Recently I can remember:
One thing I used to do years ago would be to get ground beef in bulk, brown and drain it, season with better-than-bouillon so it was tasty, then portion it out. Easy to make anything from tacos to hamurger helper to slop some veg and starch and the beef andsome sort of sauce and bam you have dinner.
And I haven't done it recently, but I like to slowcook cubes of cheap beef with better-than-bouillon and some dry roux that basically means I get super-tasty beef with gravy. Freeze that in portions and freeze my rice in portions and I can have beef and rice and gravy easily. Enhance into a meal by having enough for everyone with a vegetable or two. I like to do similar with boneless skinless chicken thighs - I'll sometimes divide th 3-4lb tray into 3-4 different areas of my griddle to season differently - some sort of french herb blend, some sort of italian herb blend, a jerk chicken, a curry, a korean or generic asian something - just to have some variety. Then put them up separately and pull out what I want with some rice and/or veg or whatever.
Sometimes it's as simple as boiling up pasta - angel hair or something bite-sized I like (I love radiatorre), drainwell, butter well, litle salt, msg, freshly ground pepper, and parmesan-like cheese (i.e. that or one of the adjacent ones like romano or whatever). So simple, but with the fresh pasta, so absolutely delicious. If a bit carb heavy, so I might thaw out a thigh to accompany.
I have also found that a great way to get myself to eat cabbage - as it's one of the veg I'm allowed/encouraged - is to get "cole slaw" i.e. shredded cabbage and saute in butter with a bit of msg and salt and pepper. Don't overcook, but get it tender - it is tasty. I also love to saute zucchni and yellow squash the same way. Well, jsut about any vegetable does well that way. If you keep moisuture low so the butter sticks to the veg, then butter/salt/msg/pepper makes any vegetable magic - don't overcook, andif your initial cooking method uses water, drain as much as you can before it's done so you can steam off the extra waterin a hot skillet while you season at the end.
I have had meals often where I had a vegetable or two and rice, and was quite happy.
Speaking of rice, my favorite:
In a rice cooker:
That is tasty rice.
You can add herbs/spices, or things ike tomato paste, garlic, ginger, sauteed onion - dependingon what the rice is for. I like to add lemon juice after it's cooked - doesn't cook well, but added after is tasty - really nice with salmon or other fish. Or chicken.
Shout out to cooksmarts. I've subscribed to it for 4-5 years now, and it really makes things simpler. On Friday or Saturday, we decide which dishes we want to cook based on that week's menu (or pull from their back catalog). They then give us the shopping list, and we order it curbside. (you can easily add it to Instacart if that's your jam).
The great thing is, we've cooked so many dishes we never would have before and generally became better cooks because of it.
I list out the days of the next week, and decide what to have each night in advance. I’m a big fan of cook once, eat twice.
I organize my meals with ingredients that can be exchanged/rotated and proportionate them following this recommendation:
It's quite simple to follow and does not require much planning, when I'm at the supermarket I only need to think what was my last meal, and rotate the ingredients, if it was meat I get fish, if I had potatoes I change it for other veggie.
My breakfast is the most stable meal, I prepare 2 boiled eggs, and season them with salt, balsamic/olive oil and some kind of seed (chia, sesame, linseed), if I feel like eating more I have oatmeal at work.
There are core ingredients that I always have home: onions, garlic, tomato cans, tuna, potatoes, seeds, eggs and rice (I buy those giant bags from the Asian market), with them improving a boring meal is always possible.
It's important to have some dishes that you know how to cook well and modify when needed.
To re-use and cook more I buy unprepared meat, for example a whole chicken and debone it myself, with the bones and leftovers I can make broth for other meals, soups, cooking richer rice, it's also cheaper if you do it yourself.
I also make my own pizzas often, including the dough, a great way to get rid of leftover veggies, same with salads.
If the struggle is to cook new meals, a good trick is to get an ingredient that you don't usually cook, this will force you to find new meals around it, I got a pumpkin the other day and ended up making some simple roasted pumpkin.
Also, I do not buy any sugar products, desserts, unhealthy pre cook meals at the supermarket, those are replaced with fruits, nuts and Greek yogurt, I do eat sweets outside home, and I don't drink any sugary drinks, only water, milk, and occasionally coffee when needed.
I am 100% vibes-based. But I prepare for my upcoming vibes.
I don't do any meal prep, partially because I love to cook and consider it a recreational break, partially because my wife will not touch leftovers of any kind. Instead, I keep my pantry and fridge stocked with canned, jarred, and frozen staples which include base starches like pasta and ramen and rice and canned potatoes, frozen veggies like peas and sweet corn and broccoli florets, and plant-based protein sources like tofu and seitan and Alpha chick'n strips and Beyond Meat steak tips. In addition, I keep a wide variety of sauces and spices on hand. Pretty much the only thing I buy fresh are onions, mushrooms if I plan to use them within the next 48 hours for a specific dish, and baby bok choy if I'm having a ramen kick.
Dinner is basically opening the fridge and the cabinet doors and deciding which starch to combine with which veggies and protein and add a relevant sauce and seasoning. I have enough stuff on hand to be able to make Italian, Indan, Asian, Mexican, soups and stews, and dishes like stroganoff and an ersatz bourguignonne. Or pizza, as I usually have some frozen crusts on hand.
Nothing I make is hyper-fancy nor labor-intensive. The goal is to make things with comparatively little prep, and virtually zero food waste because all of it is shelf stable or at least keeps for a long time before use. I've been doing it this way long enough that I keep a par of each staple and grocery shopping on the weekend is just marking and replacing which things I used during the week.
Yes, this formula and this goal necessarily set some limits on what I can make in a normal evening, but some of that's deliberate, because the tertiary goal is that it should be somewhat healthy. At least most of the time--I have some dishes like the stroganoff that I'd never call "health food", though it's also not particularly bad for you either. But it'll never be, say, burgers or casseroles or any kind of fried food. Which I enjoy all of but better for me if I save them for special occasions.
I have a pretty simple system. I have a note pinned to the top of my Notes app called “Slow food, but fast”. It’s a list of easy, healthy meals I like, sorted into three categories (Carbs, Proteins, and Veggies). Whenever I come across a quick recipe that works for me, I add it to the list. When I’m at the store and need inspiration, I just scroll through and pick the first thing that sounds good.
Also, I live alone and I usually cook 2–4 portions at once. That way I have leftovers in the fridge for the next days or something to bring to the office. I almost never use food delivery and rarely eat out.
this is one area where chatgpt is great. have it spit out a meal plan with recipes and timing and groceries etc.
i’ve this a few times with great success. i like quick dishes like curries, pasta, etc the most because they’re really easy to balance out.
I like to cook but since having kids I usually let Mom have the quiet time in the kitchen, and what we eat is usually some compromise between what the kids will eat and what we want. Either that means we cook two dinners or we eat Mac and cheese for dinner.
I know a lot of parents just tell their kids to eat what they're given, but my wife and I fully negotiate with terrorists. We have no problem with that.
I stack things in the fridge (mostly the meat components of a simple meal) in the best-before/use-by date order with the soonest on top. I'll glance through the stack, and unless I have a strong preference for something, make a meal with whatever is on top.
A calendar near the fridge also lists the same dates, so I can easily work out what I need to get through, when grocery shopping might be needed, etc. It's a system that works for me as I don't tend to explore much with my meals and generally stick to things I know I like.