I remember my mother saying that making dinner wasn’t difficult. What was difficult was deciding what to make. I agree with her.
One of the challenges when deciding what to have for dinner is to create a variety of dishes over the week, or even over a two-week period. I often get in ruts and it is easier to just make the same thing this week as I made last week.
A second challenge is to make the meal nutritious and healthy without using a lot of high calorie foods or using a lot of processed foods. I am also concerned with the salt content in food.
The third challenge is that the dishes should look appetizing and taste good. Even when trying something different, I want to feel that I have made something that was worth repeating. Every now and then I goof, but in general the meals are always edible, even though I may never make it again.
If we look at what makes a meal look appetizing, the first thing I think of is color. There should be a variety of colors and the colors should be a bit bright.
New Year’s Eve’s dinner required two pizzas, so though the same colors were used, the ingredients were slightly different on the second pizza. It is also important to think of taste and what tastes good together, as well as color. When asked, some at the dinner table preferred the one pizza and others preferred the other one. We all have different likes in taste and that is as important as looks.
