Cookbooks are overrated.

Last week I sent out a culinary S.O.S. to friends, family and fellow bloggers.

Via mass email I asked for meal suggestions to help Joe (a carnivore who detests all fruits and vegetables) and I (a pseudo vegetarian who occasionally eats chicken) break out of our food funk. Now, if you ask Joe whether or not we’re in a food funk, he’ll probably tell you all is well in our kitchen.

But all is boring in our kitchen.

Thank you to all the folks who responded to that email. Can you believe I received 30 replies? Some of you were short and sweet. Pizza. Burgers. Fries. Some of you felt compelled to write lengthy and colorful descriptions of your dietary habits and how they jive (and don’t jive) with your mate’s.

It turns out that many of you are in a similar culinary pickle, making mine and Joe’s opposite palates seem more … palatable. To quote my friend Adam, “SOLUTION: Make separate meals. If you think about it, that’s actually a kind of weird concept; every night, every couple should eat the same thing together AND LIKE IT.”

To help shake up our predictable dinner rotation, I plan to fold these suggestions into our supper stock as well as post them here. You’d be surprised how revealing a dinner menu can be.

As for the actual implementation of these recipes, I’m a struggling and impatient cook. But I’m nothing if not dedicated. I plan to print out every suggestion and create a kind of Dinner Rehab Cookbook.  Wish me potluck.

My first meal plan comes from Gracia, a Lance reader who hails from Spain and who is getting married this summer to her sweetheart, Eric.

♥♥♥

Hi Heidi,

It must be quite hard to find things you can both share, and although I’m lucky because Eric eats almost everything, there are a couple of my favourites that he won’t touch. Luckily, they are very easy to prepare just for me, and that’s what I do.

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1st – Zucchini Soup (I guess it’s more like pureed zucchini, but I just translated the Spanish name.) You basically cook together a zucchini, potato, carrot, onion and a couple laughing cow cheese wedges with a bit of salt and then puree it. It’s really good cold in summer and hot in winter.

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2nd – Gazpacho. Take a can of tomato pure (I have no idea what you get in a can of tomato puree over there, but here it’s just raw tomato, pureed. Clever, huh?), add a slice of onion, a strip of green pepper and a bit of cucumber if you like, and puree. Serve very cold (add ice cubes, it’s ok!) with a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper. Sure, you could puree your tomatoes, but don’t waste the pretty things from your garden on this, the canned type is perfectly OK.

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3rd – Veggie Frittata – Cook any vegetables you want following any method you want. put them in a pan. Cover with beaten eggs, salt and pepper. Love it.

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I’m not sure if this is what you were looking for, but in the meat department I only know about steaks and chicken breasts. Not an expert, you see. And right now, with the hot weather, I can only think of the three things above, paella and sangria. (Can you tell where I come from?) And a bit of watermelon, but preferably soaked in sangria.

Can’t wait to read your foodie series!

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Gracia