food ruts

When I find myself in a food rut I use the internet to get some inspiration. I’m not talking about a recipe search. What I’m looking for is an idea, a pretty picture that will spark me. Many times I come across an old favorite that I haven’t made in a while because I just forgot about it. That’s what the rut does, makes me forget about great dishes that I may even have all the ingredients for. It’s wierd, but the rut seems to creep back little by little. Soon I’m rotating the same 3 or 4 dishes. I’m not talking about buying fancy new foods for the sake of variety. I’m talking about buying your usual, seasonal, fresh and affordable foods and just rearranging them a bit. To liven up your senses while sticking to your budget, that’s the aim here. What seems to be mundane can become quite exraordinary with just a few tweaks. So here I am posting a few recent successful meals of ours that you may want to try. If you have any favorite fall meals or cookbooks I’d love to hear about them.

*All meals pictured here are just as tasty without the meats. I just happen to have 50lbs of organic, grass fed beef in my freezer at the moment and need to use it.



Chili with plantains. I like lots of raw veg toppings. For company I would add on some corn muffins.



A stew of potatoes, carrots, white beans, corn and green beans all flavored with oregano, can tomato and a sprinke of feta cheese. One chicken breast goes a long way when you've got all those other tasty things.



Beef and mushrooms with cumin and cinnamon served with coconut rice. A little bit of good quality something goes a long way to enhance a dish. In this case it was chopped tomato and plain (full fat) yogurt.



This is my current favorite sauce. It is coconut-tomato with basil from Molly Katzen's book The Vegetable Dishes I Can't Live Without. What can I say? She is the Queen. I made it here with wide noodles and veggies.