Free Recipes for the Bored Eater

I don’t know about the rest of y'all, but when it comes to cooking, I’ve got a select number of regular dishes that I know how to prepare on the spot.  I can also get creative at times, but that’s mainly what my culinary skills consist of.  Lately though, I’ve become bored of these basic dishes, even to the point where I mainly just eat for the reason of survival…I’m just not enjoying my food anymore.  And it’s not that I can’t cook something else, but that I don’t have any ideas of what else to cook.  

For a while I’d look through my cook books, but there are only so many times I can go through it before I’ve tried everything my food allergies will allow me to eat.  Then I came across food.com.  At food.com, I found free recipes galore!   At the top of the page, the first thing I saw was a picture that made my mouth water, a popular category, top ten recipe searches, and top-rated recipes.

To keep things new, each day food.com features a “Chef of the Day” and one of their dishes.  Members (free) can post their own recipes, rate and review others’, join in discussions, and can keep updated through various networking sites, like Facebook.

Food.com also helps you calculate nutritional information on recipes by using the USDA nutritional information database.

I think maybe the only downside (so far) of food.com is that there are so many recipes and categories that I don’t know where to begin…it’s so overwhelming!  :P

Get free recipes based on ingredients that you already have

I admit, I'm such a lazy cook. Oftentimes, I find myself staring blankly at our pantry or the inside of our refrigerator and I'll still be clueless on what food to cook. We would have meat, pasta, veggies, and spices, but I still wouldn't know which would go best with what ingredient. But now, I've found a new savior to help me during those what-can-I-cook-today moments.

RecipeMatcher is a website that helps you generate free recipes based on ingredients that you already have. Just enter your available ingredients and RecipeMatcher will come up with tons of recommended free recipes based those ingredients. The free recipes are ranked based on the ingredients that you already have. They also show you the additional ingredients you may need.

With RecipeMatcher, you may either sign up for a free account or just go directly to the "What's in your pantry?" area and input your ingredients. One good advantage of having a free account on the website is that you can have an ePantry where you can keep an inventory of all your groceries and ingredients that you have at home.

Aside from free recipes, RecipeMatcher can also generate alcoholic drinks based on what's in your bar.