Oh, Magic Google, What’s for dinner?

Ever been in one of those situations where you know the ingredients you can use for dinner, but can’t quite figure out how to put them together? Or maybe you’re bored with the same old things in your menu rotations?

In yesteryear when the dinner funk descended, I would begin browsing cookbooks in the mid-afternoon. If I found something that sounded good and used what I had in the house, then I had to determine if the dish could be cooked in the amount of time left after my search. Yes, things were slow back then. No Food Network, no You Tube cooking videos, no Google recipe search. Only cookbooks and handwritten recipe cards.

But I’ve discovered the endless supply of recipes on Google. Yeah, I’m probably late to the party, but better late than never, right? The fabulous thing about Google recipes is that you can find really tasty healthy dishes on sites like www.eatingwell.com and delicious decadence at www.epicurious.com. Of course, Food Network has its own site where you can find recipes from all the shows.

But I like to play a kind of Google Recipe Roulette when I’m bored with my rotating menus. It’s a simple game. First you choose your main ingredient, which for me is the protein source–chicken, fish, beans, tofu, etc. Then I think about vegetables I have and whether I want to do a stove top or oven dish.

For example tonight, I wanted to something with shrimp and pasta, but it turned out I only had five frozen shrimp left from my bulk purchase. Not quite enough for the two of us. So I’d add some scallops, also from a bulk buy. And since it’s hot as blue blazes here in Florida this week, I wanted something rather light and quick to cook. Maybe pasta. So here’s the roulette part.

Enter shrimp, scallop and pasta in the Google search box and see what comes up. Tonight I scrolled through several options before settling on a nice dish with broccoli, red peppers, white wine and garlic I found at www.poorgirleatswell.com. The dish was delicious and exactly what I was in the mood for. Check out this site for great recipes on a budget. Poor Girl breaks each recipe down into cost per serving which is helpful, and she thinks out of the box. I liked her min-mart taco salad idea, too!

So when you get stuck in that what’s for dinner besides take out, try a little Google Recipe Roulette!