What should I make for dinner tonight?

I’m a good cook (IMHO) but a horrible menu planner. I’ve got 2 coming for dinner, and haven’t decided on a meal yet.

One doesn’t like cooked tomatoes. The other doesn’t like fish. I don’t like spending more than $50.

Any suggestions?

Do your friends like stir fry or Thai? If so, you can either get a bunch of fresh veggies, or get a mix of frozen, grab a pound or two of chicken and either make a stir fry sauce for a more Chinese flavor, or get a can of coconut milk for a more Thai taste. If you decide to make something that tastes more Thai, brown the chicken briefly on both sides, then toss in the veggies and cook for about a minute, then mix in the coconut milk with a half teaspoon of red or green curry paste (you can find small jars of these in the same section as the soy sauce) and let it simmer until the chicken is cooked and serve over rice. This is a pretty good, cheap one-bowl meal. It’s nice because it looks pretty if you have a lot of different veggies, but since you’re not cooking a zillion different things (main course and sides), it doesn’t take long, and you won’t mess up a lot of pans. If you need dessert, you can always just grab a frozen pie and stick it in the oven when you serve dinner so it’ll have an hour to cook and will be hot and ready to serve when you’re done, or a few minutes after. If you really want to make something homemade, you can get some phyllo dough, then make little packets with apples, cinnamon and sugar and bake them 'til they’re golden and bubbly.

I’m a firm believer that, especially if it’s not a formal dinner, not all elements of your dinner have to match. In other words, if you serve Indian food, you don’t have to have some sort of Indian appetizer and dessert to make the dinner good.

Make a nice pizza.

You can never go wrong with pizza

Lemon pepper chicken is easy and cheap. Or rather as I make it lime pepper. About half a lime per piece of chicken, add a little onion and garlic to give some extra flavor.

A good salad and a vegetable side dish to go with it. Shouldn’t cost much at all. It’s healthy. Most people like it. And it really doesn’t take too much to prep it. Maybe about 45 minutes in the oven.

Unless someone doesn’t like cooked tomatoes.

For a quick and easy dish, there’s always spaghetti carbonara (pasta with cheese, eggs and bacon).

Or go the other way and make something that can sit around in the oven for a while. Maybe a pork casserole with lots of nice green and red peppers, mushrooms, thickly sliced onions in a thick, creamy sauce. Break out the rice cooker when they show up and you don’t waste time in the kitchen.

I don’t know if this is necessarily what you want for entertaining people, but just for a nice dinner sometime, try making a tortilla espanola (also known as tortilla de patatas). It’s a Spanish dish made with onions, potatoes, and eggs. I can’t remember the exact ratio or anything, but you can probably google it. I love it!

Cooking/recipe threads belong in Cafe Society.

I’ll move this for you.

Cajun Man
for the SDMB

I’ve decided to go for the stir fry because it sounds good and I’m lazy.

Thanks for the suggestions all!

Well, you’ve never had my red potato, rosemary and olive oil pizza. Not a lick of tomato (or cheese) to be found, and yet, yummers.