Do you have set days for certain dinners?

janeainsworth . That sounds very familiar.

janea

Whatever I fancy on the day. No planning at all. DH hoovers up happily anything I prepare and this way works best for us with the occasional take-away curry delivered and a weekly pub lunch.

Well I'm the lucky one. On the one hand DH husband does the cooking and is a very good cook but we are in a rut. I make it worse because I don't have a big appetite and would happily be vegetarian but I just eat what's put in front of me which is always rather predictable!
Years ago when we were both working (me part time) I used to do more of the cooking (the DDs sometimes used to say what's this?). Oh how I larfed.
One day I found an old calendar on which I'd written that week's meals-I read it out and asked DH when he thought it was-last week perhaps? It was something like 10 years previously!

Oh no I couldn't have a set routine for meals. My mother did and it drove me scatty that there was so little variety and she would bang on about how bored she was with food.

Monday - something with salad or 'nursery tea' (fish fingers, baked beans and scrambled egg)
Tuesday - curry
Wednesday - soup and a hot cross bun
Thursday - ditto
Friday - smoked salmon and other cold fish treats
Saturday - red meat (beef/lamb/venison etc.) with vegetables
Sunday - lasagne or spag bol or chilli con carne

But all bets are off if Waitrose has something nice in the knock-down section. We buy that and plan round it. This week we found cod with pea crust, monkfish and duck.

I prefer it to be ad hoc. I have meat in the freezer, in single portions, purchased when they are on special offer. I buy seasonal vegetables and make a meal round that each evening. Often we have "stretched" left overs if there is too much for my lunch or DH doesn't care particularly for that meal.

He is punctilious about times... coffee at 11, lunch at 1, dinner at 6! No messing around... Not just that, but it has to be toast at breakfast, marmalade on weekdays, honey at weekends, sandwiches for lunch - except when we go out which is probably twice a year. It is very wearing! Me? I drink when I'm thirsty, and would eat when I'm hungry.

In this house it's something of a miracle if I know what I'm doing for dinner at any time before 7-00 pm!
Very, very occasionally, something will be prepared and put in the slow cooker, but it's very infrequent,
Last night I excelled, we had our dinner at 9-10, which was ridiculously late, but for one reason or another, I just didn't get my act together!
I think I'm quietly rebelling after years of strict meal times due to living with shift workers, both dad and DH.
I really must try to set my body clock differently though, as I loathe doing dishes at 10-00 pm!

We tend to eat out with friends a lot, so tomorrow we're out, Sunday we're off rambling so a picnic and something cooked when we get home. Monday and Friday are my 5:2 fast days so that only leaves Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday when I'm with DiL and GKs next week, so who knows how that will work out, mealwise.

In my ideal world, I would be a menu planner and savvy shopper. I am put to shame by some of these posts. Must get my act together

I hate routine. I certainly don't have a weekly menu. It's the benefit of living alone. I eat what I fancy. I suffer from diabetes so have to be careful of too many carbohydrates, but meat fish and vegetarian when I like.

No routine. We shop weekly and buy what we fancy, which DH then cooks (aren't I lucky!) in a number of different ways. He always looks for new recipes and usually asks what I want for dinner out of what we have. DH hates the thought of eating the same thing on the same days. I'm just far too disorganised anyway.

As a working girl, still, I like to have a plan for the week and do all the shopping on a Saturday. A mosey around the supermarket is my only "me" time, whilst I'm at it, picking up perhaps a CD or a DVD or a jumper for my own pleasure.

When making out my weekly plan, I use a spread sheet as a basis for the week's meals. In one column I have a list which repeats every week, so we have meat on Sunday, fish on Friday, chicken on Wednesday, egg-based dish on Tuesday, cheese on Thursday, etc. In the next column I have "potatoes, rice, pasta, cereal, repeated ad infinitum" which means that each combination only crops up every 28 days (I think). This is just a guide line if I can't decide what to serve up for dinner on that day, and it's not kept to as rigidly as the old song "Monday washing day, Tuesday sooo-ooop..." went.

A lot of food waste could be prevented if we all did a leftover stew or bake once a week, the day before we did the week's shopping. Same goes for fruit - using all the leftover fruit in the bowl for a fruit salad for pudding once a week would mean that the fruit was always fresh and none would go off.

I live on my own so on the whole I eat what I want when I want. I do have many occasions where I am eating the same food two evenings on the trot. I will cook eg a curry on a Monday, also have a portion on the Tuesday and freeze any that is left over. Ditto if I slow cook food.

I do try to have some vague idea of what I may fancy so that I am not shopping daily. It works out fine because like others I can find bargains. I like to have something decent on a Saturday night so that may be half a steak with trimmings and the remainder on the Sunday.

Oh no I could never do that.... To boring I like to make what we fancy on the day. Think you maybe need to have a flick through a recipe book. Good luck and enjoy the delights of spontaneity

Well we do have meals we like, so they get made quite regularly and we do have one 'set' meal most weeks: Sunday night is bacon and sausage sandwiches!! (Not QUITE as unhealthy as it sounds, as I use Morrison's NuMe sausages, and thin and crispy smoked back bacon, and cook them all in the oven with no fat, plus reduced sugar and salt Ketchup, and I have my bread dry, although I cannot persuade hubby to join me!). I make a menu in order to make a shopping list, but meals vary greatly, depending on season, our recent fancies, etc. I don't really like too rigid a routine in anything, although I do like some structure!!

We have fish on Wednesday and Friday because those are market days. We usually have roast meat on Sunday and cold or something creative with leftovers on Monday. One or two days are normally meat free. Apart from that we cook curries, tagines and casseroles in winter and barbecues in spring / summer (tonight is barbecued spicy pork chops and ratatouille).
No rice, potatoes, pasta or bread, but masses of veg. No puddings apart from very special days like birthdays.

Thursdays always 'Spag Bol!' Quick and easy as I used to always go to a class on Thursday evenings and so it has stayed. Usually fish on Fridays but the rest is open to suggestion

no - hate the idea

I dont even have a regular roast on sundays. Once every three weeks roughly, and not necessarily on a sunday

When I was still working, we had a four week meal planner that avoided too much repetition. We made a list of all the meals we liked having and wrote them on a grid so there was a good variation during the week. We included several meat free meals and a couple of takeaways over the four weeks.

The biggest advantages of this system were:
I knew what to shop for.
I avoided impulse buys.
I cut down on waste.

Since I retired, we've let it slip but we keep promising ourselves we'll set it up again.

Only on Tuesday as I'm generally out for lunch, and DH has his cardiac exercise class from 5-6pm. We always have something eggy as it's quick and light after his class. Rest of the week is as we fancy .

We also have a curry on a Friday and throw caution to the wind at the weekend but that's a close to a routine as it gets. We generally have the same eight or nine meals depending on season and they get shuffled around according to whim and effort. Mine, usually. Oh has only cooked three meals in 12 years, left to him it's a meal out or a take away...lol!

we have stew every saturday and then a roast after church on sunday, apart from those two it's whatever we have in or what the butchers got

Not only do I not have a timetable of meals, I sometimes change my mind at the last minute. If I have had an exhausting time looking after recalcitrant grandchildren, the evening's menu that I had decided on in the morning quite often goes out the window – not literally – and we have an easy supper, such as homemade soup (there's almost always some in the freezer) with cheese on toast or omelette with whatever filling comes to hand and chips. Sometimes I go really berserk and we stroll round to the local pub and treat ourselves to something on its menu.

I would add that I tend to cook for far more than two people and freeze an additional two, three or even four meals for us to have later on. This really does make my life easy as we can decide in the morning whether we want chilli, curry, daube, chicken casserole or whatever and then defrost a bagful of two portions.

I always have meals in the freezer or the option of the pub...for the same reasons as you absent..often after a busy day ICBA!