Recipes!

I thought I would write this down as I'm thinking about it--and preparing next week's meal plan.

First off, I HATE THINKING ABOUT FOOD.

Secondly, when we only really have one real day to shop (okay, two, but when we have the option to do absolutely nothing on Sunday we take it!) it's kind of necessary to think about a whole week's worth of dinners beforehand. I mean, with shops closing quite early here too, and both of us relying on public transport to get places, it's just not very convenient to pop out for a minute to grab something we might be missing.

So here I sit, hurting my brain trying to think of things to eat.

We're getting a bit bored of our usual fare. We've found recipes we both like that are easy and pretty fast to cook, two very important things when all we want to do when we get home is sit around doing nothing. Anyway, we've been having the same things over and over again, which is all I ever really had at home and school, but it's sort of like... blah. Part of the problem is that some stuff that I do like -- say, tacos -- I don't particularly like here. I like a particular seasoning packet thing that isn't available here. I might ask my mom to send some in the next care package, actually... but I haven't seen a single Mexican-style cheese here either! I guess this is what happens when you live so far from Mexico.

Speaking of, crushed red pepper isn't a thing here either. There's crushed chili pepper, but it tastes different. I'm dying.

Trying to find new recipes is hard, because half of me is like, well, what if I don't like it? Sometimes more importantly, what if I can't find the proper ingredients here? (I find it a little strange that recipe sites are SO completely American-saturated. I guess maybe it shouldn't come as such a big surprise.)

Urgh, and then as I stare at recipe sites I'm like, "This sounds exactly like this thing that's on the list right now." It doesn't seem different. Why is food so hard? Is this why Moody was so horrible all the time? Can't think of anything new, here's some pasta.

I mean, I do like pasta, and it's so so so easy... asked Cal if we could put it on the menu multiple times this week. He said yes. So grateful.

I guess the point of this blog post is to ask, do any of YOU have any tried and true recipes you like? I'm open to hearing about anything (if I don't like something in it, I guarantee Cal will eat it anyway!). Leave your suggestions for your favorite meals and we might incorporate them into our weekly plans.

Fun Fact: our fridge freezes things on its very lowest (er, highest? Whatever's warmer) setting (probably because we never have a TON of stuff in there--we're only two people and things can go bad so fast!), so we can only have things like salad the night after we go shopping, or we'll be chomping on frozen lettuce. And if we let it defrost first, it goes all wilty and soggy and gross. :(

P.S. My nutella addiction is seriously becoming a problem. And on these recipe sites I frequent, all I ever really want to make are the desserts. PROBLEM.