2013 Cookbook Challenge: Intro and Week 1

We eat like shit, y'all. I've been writing down everything that goes in my mouth this week, and it's not a pretty picture. This habit of eating out instead of cooking because we're lazy explains my svelte (ha!) figure, our lack of savings, and the loneliest cookbook collection this side of Appalachia.

The picture does not include my super awesome recipe book, filled with favorites, that Bonnie got me for my birthday last year! Nor does it include some random magazine tear sheets containing recipes I'd like to try someday. It does include some cookbooks I forgot I owned until I went to take this photo. Sad.

So I've decided that we need to use these cookbooks more often! We have all this tasty goodness right at our fingertips and we ignore them like that guy selling roses on the 95 off-ramp.  #truestory

Our 2013 resolution challenge goal thingy is to make something from one of these books at least once a week. That's 52 recipes to try - and 52 fewer nights we eat out. Everybody wins, right? Any dish from any book counts, but I'm going to try to stay away from anything involving cupcakes, cake, or whoopie pies, since those have seen way more use than the other books containing actual food that won't give you a coronary.

Speaking of a coronary, our first contender is Pampered Chef's Family Burrito Bake from their Deep Covered Baker cookbook. We've made and loved a few recipes from this book before, like the three cheese mac and cheese and Chinese-style baby back ribs, so it has a good track record so far. :)

Supposedly this dish is 340 calories per serving, but tastes much more decadent than that!

Yum!