One of my challenges as a cook is my love-hate relationship with recipes. I love reading, drooling over, and collecting them; I hate actually pulling them out and using them. Once I learn a technique, I rarely feel like working from a recipe variation of it, and in a weeknight dinner situation, I am much more likely to turn to a comfortable technique than broaden my horizons with a new recipe. Add to this the unpredictability of CSAs, which makes planning meals in advance a little more challenging, and you can see why so many of the meals I end up posting about sound so similar.

So today, my project was to survey, organize and refresh my recipe collection. I'm reviewing everything, then ditching books I never cook from and clippings I'll never use, and ordering a few new books that promise to provide challenges and inspiration in equal measure. Goodbye, boring Cooking Light 20-minute meals, broiled tilapia and chicken with soy marinade! I was raised on soy-marinated chicken and could cook it eight ways in my sleep - why did I clip those to begin with!? Auf Wiedersehen, musty Frugal Gourmet paperbacks that smell too strongly of used-book store mildew to even open!

I'm also thinking about setting up some challenges for myself to increase the number of recipes I try. Maintaining a blog is a great motivator when in comes to challenges, so of course you'll be seeing the fruits of this project here soon!