How many recipes do you really use on a continual basis? That is, how long before you repeat one? No one can make a new dish every night, and I don’t count those with small ingredient changes.
For me, its 2 weeks, then it repeats. So about twice a month is the same dish.
I repeat about every week. I stick with what works and run with it. Of course, cooking on the grill is featured pretty often, and the meat changes, so you can’t really say its the same thing all the time. If that makes any sense.
I made my wife cook tonight. I don’t dabble in the chicken sciences.
Off to where the foodies hang out. Which, unfortunately, should skew the results somewhat.
Moved from IMHO to CS.
Now, a reply:
I tend to repeat recipes for two or three times in a couple of weeks, then I don’t do them at all for half a year, then I repeat them again.
Part of that is because I am single. If I buy special ingredients just for one recipe, but I won’t use them in other stuff, I’ll try to use them up by making the same thing again after a few days.
Sorry, Frank. I’m new and still trying to figure where everything goes!
We try to make at least one new recipe each week, if we can. Some things we make twice a month, somethings less. If it’s been a busy, stressful couple of weeks (like the last few) Kraft Mac and Cheese finds a place in the rotation, to be bannished once the stress goes away. We also have winter recipes and summer recipes.
Good timing! My husband and I recently decided to do some actual menu planning, so we put the meals that we regularly make on index cards, and we found that we have about 20. We figured that, since we have to have dinner each night, plus lunch on Saturday and Sunday, and we usually eat out once or twice a week, and have a meal of leftovers about once or twice a week, and we decided to try one new dish each week, so that gives us a month’s worth before we repeat.
We tend to mix it up; usually during the week we’ll have 2 or 3 regulars from the family favorites list, a day or 2 of leftovers and the balance will be new stuff, or at least stuff we don’t make more than every couple of months. I would say our roster of family favorites is probably 20-30 meals, so we don’t repeat anything more than once a month or so.
I have probably about 5 year round standards. Eg. grilled hamburgers, steak, chicken caesar salad, shrimp curry.
Then, each season sees a different crop of about 10 work its way in.
I try to add something in a completely new direction (typically seasonal) at least once a month. It might make it into the rotation, go away forever, or just come out once or twice per year (like osso buco, braised short ribs, or lamb biryani).
I haven’t made beef stew or baked beans since January, but when the weather cools off and I need something to do while I’m watching football on Sunday, there ya go.
On the other hand, grilled salmon with fresh pineapple salsa is packing it’s backs and moving to Florida in about a week.