We watched Julie and Julia with my parents and brother and sister-in-law to be last weekend. Brandon and I had already watched it once, but it was fun to watch it again! Meryl Streep did such a great job.

Earlier that day I had a conversation with my mom and Mer (my brother’s soon-to-be wife) about how I am not good at cooking meals. I am a fairly good cook, most of the things I try turn out well, but I hate to go shopping for everything! It is rare that I have all the ingredients in the house and while we have a Target close by it isn’t a Super Target and has a very limited grocery selection. I also am terrible at actually coming up with something to make. When I flip through the cookbook I am uninterested in the things listed and my collection of recipes is limited and we tend to eat many of the same meals.

So, I was inspired to fix my cooking problem. I will not be cooking through Julia Child’s cookbook or any cookbook for that matter, but I am planning to fix 50 NEW recipes this year. That will be about 1 a week which at this point seems doable.

I am going to define “NEW”: “New” for this project will mean anything I haven’t made myself…I may have eaten it, but I have not made it. I did look through my Rachael Ray cookbook and picked out a few recipes I have never had before and will also try my hand at those.

Tonight was the beginning of my project…1 meal down 49 to go!

I made Tater Tot Hot Dish tonight…it was delicious and so easy!

Here is the recipe if anyone would like to try:

Brown 1# ground beef with chopped onions (it does not list how much onion…Brandon is not fond of onion so I    used 1/2 an onion for ours.) Drain. Add Salt and Pepper to taste. Put in bottom of a small roaster pan.

Drain a can of corn or green beans and layer on top of meat.

Dilute 1 can of Cream of Celery soup with 1/2 can of milk. Spoon mixture over vegetables.

Top with tater tots

Bake at 350 for 1 hr.

Enjoy!