The daily decision

"I don't believe in taking right decisions. I take decisions and then make them right." Ratan Tata

Recently I wrote a post on planning meals in advance - Do you plan a week's meals? My daughter-in-law read it and admitted that although she does plan it doesn't always work and then added:

"You should do a post on what to decide to have for dinner. That is difficult and when I ask anyone else what they want they say surprise me! Aghhhhh!"

So here I go. The first thing to recognise is that everyone is in a different situation when it comes to dinner. Age, location, income, family size, time available are just the start of the whole thing, not to mention personalities, likes and dislikes. So there is no one simple answer. I'll try to generalise because obviously some things apply to everyone, but mostly I'm thinking of family cooking for older children - in this instance teenagers and a nine-year old. I'm also talking about people without real money problems or real storage problems.

I really don't need to tell my daughter-in-law how to cook - she's a superb cook and has a great collection of cookbooks. I guess it's more a question of decisions, decisions when you have so many things to consider - the personal likes and dislikes of each member of the family - one of them is a vegetarian and a picky one at that - and doubtless they all have different things they won't eat. Then there's technical questions, like what do you have in the fridge, how much time and what equipment you have - well she has just about everything in the equipment line.

So I think I'm going to begin with what you should always have to hand - which will vary from person to person. Bearing that in mind, I'll use me as a template, that can be varied according to your own tastes. And I'm sure Dionne has all of these things.

In the fridge I always have, eggs, cream, milk, cheese, butter, yoghurt, bacon and ham, and a whole lot of jars of things like mustard, tomato purée and passata, crushed chilli ... these are all personal taste things - things to add a bit of a different flavour. Also in the fridge are vegetables - always some lemons, parsley, carrots, lettuce and ginger, boosted by whatever looked good last time I went shopping, was cheap because it's in season or on a special. This is a recent photograph of the interior of my fridge, but it's pretty typical.

In the pantry are potatoes and onions and garlic.

In the freezer there are frozen peas, spinach, corn kernels and also some berries of one kind or another. Also there is always mince, and always chicken breast, and some kind of beef steak - usually rump. Frozen pastry in quiche sized balls - as I wrote the other day. There's lots of other stuff in there - meat I have bought on special, ice-cream ... it varies. I'm not a good freezer person.

In the pantry are tins of tomatoes, various beans and fish; pasta and rice, vinegars and oils, spices and dried herbs, nuts; sugars and flours; dried fruit, jam and honey. And a whole lot of other stuff that sometimes gets totally forgotten.

All obvious stuff really. Except what you cook depends, especially I think, on the stuff you have in the fridge. It's generally my starting point because here there are usually things that need using up. leftovers being one of them, although with a family, that is less likely to happen. These are the things that you can vary according to the seasons. This is where variety and experimentation begins. In fact this comment from a Reddit commenter was, I thought, one that could be applied to a family situation:

"Mostly I just buy vegetables everyone in the house likes & come up with ways to use them (it's usually pasta/risotto/stir-fried rice/cous cous salad). It's not always exciting food, but that's alright — not many people eat Delicious stuff every day." jeeveless/Reddit

Though unexciting doesn't always mean not delicious. Besides why shouldn't it be exciting every now and then. And his/her 'pasta/risotto/stir-fried rice/couscous salad' list would be different in my house. Here it would be pasta, quiche/tart/pie, tray bake, braise/stew/curry and sometimes stir-fry and the occasional risotto. I'm sure it would be different in every household.

And with respect to shopping you will always get advice like the following from chefs and food writers which is a bit idealistic and almost romantic, although with a kernel of truth buried within.

“It is important to cook in the right frame of mind (we are not talking everyday chores here) and to do things in the right order. Ergo: feel hungry; go out shopping with pen and paper and money. See good things, buy them. Write down further items that will accompany previous purchases. Come home. Have a glass of wine. Cook the food and eat.” Simon Hopkinson

And let me say I rarely have a pen and pencil list. Well I do, but it's usually just for things that need replacing - like I've run out of yoghurt or cream. The vegetables - apart from those essential, potatoes, onions, carrots - are generally impulse buys. The only other time I would write something down would be if I was making something 'special' either for visitors or just because I felt like it, and I was missing an ingredient. But then I'm not into weekly planning.

The right frame of mind is crucial however. It's demoralising to put your heart and soul into cooking something you think is wonderful and then have one of your family reject it. It's demoralising to cook the same things over and over again, because you know they will eat it. Which is definitely what I did when my sons were teenagers, and very unadventurous. Looking back I possibly should have pushed the envelope a bit more and made completely new things that could have been acceptable. Tim Lewis in The Guardian quoted a friend who said:

“You have to think of it like being a line cook,” he replied, years of pain in his voice. "Your job is not to be showy. It’s to do your bit and get the job done: to make peace with cooking the same meal again and again. Innovation or experimentation were neither expected nor required from your customers (that is, your offspring)." Tim Lewis/The Guardian

Besides being in the right frame of mind is not just dependent on what your audience wants, it's also what you feel like. For example today I was going to be adventurous and make Yotam Ottolenghi's Coffee and chill chicken koftas with onions but after a bad night's sleep and facing a dull day, I just didn't feel like it, so instead I'm just going to make up a kind of curry with the chicken. I was trying to fulfil one of my weekly resolutions - to make something new, but never mind. Who's checking on me? I've still got the recipe waiting in the kitchen for me. Another day when I'm feeling adventurous, and prepared to face possible rejection from a less adventurous husband.

You could also try sneaking in a small amount of a new ingredient or a theoretically unloved ingredient. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't.

I am never as adventurous as a real chef however. I never make anything that isn't based on ideas I have gleaned from here and there over the years. I'm not Ixta Belfrage who can say:

"when I’m cooking for pleasure, I love the idea of adventuring into the unknown. I prefer to set out with a very loose idea of what I want to achieve, because my favourite part about cooking for pleasure is being able to add anything without thinking, without timing, without weighing, which means that a dish could go in any of a thousand directions." Ixta Belfrage

And yet, to a much lesser degree, I guess that is what we do when faced with a set of leftovers, and/or things that need using in the fridge. And if you are in the mood it is indeed fun and rewarding if your efforts work and are appreciated. Alas, as another Reddit commenter says:

"We still occasionally try something new when we're in the mood, but really, who's got that kind of energy?" gscrap/Reddit

Not a mother of three and teenagers and almost teenager at that. Maybe at the weekend? Maybe in the school holidays make them do the cooking - at least one day each a week. And I think for a while my grandchildren did. I don't know whether they still do. They do say, however, that if you cook it yourself you are more likely to like it. Let them decide what to cook, or give them a challenge - whichever works best.

I see I have rambled as usual and without really answering the question. I don't think planning a week's menus in detail is possible because honestly mood is so important. Yours - not theirs. Well tell yourself their mood should not be the decision maker. Of course you can have a vague idea that one day you will do pasta, another something vegetarian, one day a tray bake, one day chicken - whatever. You could ask you family at the weekend to each suggest an idea for a meal, whether it be something specific, something based on a particular ingredient, or particular type of dish, even something vague like 'rich but light' which I think was a long ago challenge from David. Choose a cookbook either at random, or because you fancy it, and then browse and choose a recipe or just open the book at a page and make what's on it. (I suspect that wouldn't work). Make all those things your weekly list and then work around it. Don't make it specific to a particular day - just make something from your list on the day that you feel like that particular thing. You could have a longer list than the days of the week to make it easier. And make peace with the fact that, as in my case, you can't cook anything that includes a lot of chilli, prawns, or coconut ...

I came up with the idea of a weekly list a while ago - something new or from a 'guru', fish, vegetarian, something containing legumes, and something from the freezer - but I confess I rarely achieve more than two from the list. And it's not my driving motivation. That generally comes from what I feel like eating from what's in the fridge:

"My theory is: anything I can crave, I can learn how to make. Are there days when you seriously don't know what you WANT to eat?" spammmmmmmmy/Reddit

So maybe the answer is, never mind them, you just go ahead and make what you feel like, and then if they don't like it they can just go hungry, cook something themself or have some cheese and biscuits. Takeaway being banned. Maybe we just have to learn how to market what we make, because it's bound to be good isn't it?

POSTSCRIPT

August 18

2023 - When a guru disappoints

2022 - Ladies lunch - cult Thai at Chin Chin

2021 - A dream tea on the terrace

2020 - Streusel is not crumble - or is it?

2019 - A food related bit of misery

2018 - Strawberry jam - I must be mad!

2017 - Searching for a place to eat out

2016 - A word from Delia Smith