It's my turn to cook dinner tonight for the girlfriend, the roommates, and some other random friends. This isn't usually a problem seeing as I love to cook, but I just can't come up with any good ideas at the moment.

Anyone got any good ideas and/or good recipe sites for me to peruse?

Looking to feed about sixish.

Thanks in advance.

I love love love to cook. Any parameters at all? Or restrictions?

Nope. Planning on hitting up the grocery store after work, so anything will work.

Edit: Actually, its really nice out here. So something on the grill would be perfect.

Well here's what I'm making for dinner, and it's godly, and easy (and perfect for summer).

You'll need...

1 1/2 cups of diced tomato. I use grape tomatoes because I really love their flavor and small seeds, but cherries will work, so will regular tomatoes, but you'll probably want to deseed.

2 tablespoons of chopped up kalamata olives, the yummy Greek kind

1 tablespoon of chopped fresh basil. Fresh is king. Fresh fresh fresh.

1 teaspoon of fresh chopped oregano.

1/2 teaspoon minced garlic

2 teaspoons olive oil

2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

So mix up these first few ingredients when you first get home. Cover it and chill it while you do everything else. Though you might want to double it for 6.

Tasty rolls or buns

Chicken breasts--I'd estimate one per person. Grill these up with salt, pepper and a little olive oil. Won't need or want anything too fancy.

When the chicken is done, slice it nice and thin, and arrange it on the rolls. Then grab that tomato mixture, crumble the feta into it, mix it up and spoon it over the chicken before topping the sandwich. It's absurdly good, very healthy, and goes great with a salad.

Edit: God, I'm such a domestic nerd.

If you are grilling and time is short I find kabobs to be ideal. Various diced meats and veggies are great with a 30-minute marinade. Or, you can go the sea food route with some shrimp, scallops, and a little olive oil on the veggies.

Curse you! That sounds so good it's making me drool.

Second the kabobs - I'm particularly fond of kafta, although it does look rather unappealing at first. There is however very little room for doing anything interesting on a grill.

An interesting thought is to take a large, whole cut of meat. Not a kabob, not a patty, not a steak or anything of the sort - I mean the whole damn thing. It's important that it be a cut of meat with a layer of fat on it for reasons that shall become clear.

Then, cut a deep gash into it. You don't want to sever it into two parts, nor do you want to go all the way through; after that you get to do something very satisfying: Turn it inside out. The procedure may look innocuous, but once you grill it over a very slow fire (Use charcoal or real wood, for heaven's sake, or an electric contact grill. Anything else is for losers.) the fat will soak into the meat, making it rather more tender than is normal. Again, the rump cover benefits from this, as it's usually hard but extremely flavourful. You can also stuff the hole with some sort of filling; mozzarella cheese (Of any kind, but particularly the buffalo variety) works exceptionally well.

Mmm, this should be a sticky topic and people can add recipes for others to make. I know a lot of students play Lusternia, so it might be neat to have an IRL Lusternia cookbook.

These things make me so hungry.

I love to cook. While I've only got 1/2 year of a Food and Nutrition course in high school under my belt, I still love it. The only problem is that my mother NEVER lets me cook. Whenever I want to, I give her a list of ingredients, but she never gets them while shopping.

And then when I'm babysitting my little brats, she makes everything for us before she does to work.