Digging Out from Dinner Blues

The biggest development in the dinner department at our house is that we now have 4/5 of diners willing to eat tacos of the basic ground beef prepared with store-bought seasoning variety.  The fifth family member gets cheese quesadillas on taco night. 

I have more child-free time than ever in recent history which should make menu planning, shopping, and meal preparation easier.  The problem is one of will.  Now beaten down by years of my kids' picky eating and my hubby's travel schedule, I've lost interest in seeking out and trying new recipes.  Motivated by the taco "success," I am vowing to turn back the clocks eight or ten years to when I was more motivated (and only had one child) and blissfully collecting new recipes.  I only made a fraction of the ones that caught my eye, but the passion was there.

I visited the library this afternoon and grabbed a few cookbooks (see collage above) that looked promising.  My strategy will not be to put post-its all throughout the books and then hastily remove them (with recipes unmade) when they're due back.  Instead, I plan to try one (just ONE) recipe in each book.  Or maybe even ONE new recipe total from among the four books.  I'll follow up in a few weeks with triumphs or excuses.

And, since I mentioned tacos, check out these new flat taco shells.  Sort of an open-face taco, but less risky than a tostada shell.  I liked them.  Let's hope these new shells aren't the most exciting thing to hit my kitchen this month.

Free lead for Weird Al and/or YouTubers everywhere:  Flat-bottomed shells you make the kitchen world go 'round. 

Dinner success stories?  I'm all ears.  Please share!