Earlier this week I went through my cookbooks, cookie magazines, and recipe collection making lists of things I plan to make for the holidays this year.  Which treats will I send in care packages across the country?  What cookie recipes make the short list for cookie swaps?  What kind of food gifts will I be making for my coworkers and neighbors?

After color coding my selections with post it tabs in The Cookie and Biscuit Bible and creating coordinating lists from cookie editions of food magazines, I grabbed the old index card box covered long ago with recipe copies, red borders, and clip art of a fork, knife and spoon. I knew I had kept a handful of my mom’s cookie recipes in the box and wanted to make sure I knew exactly where they could be found when holiday baking inspiration strikes in the coming weeks.

While I was pulling out family favorite cookie recipes, I also made a little pile of dishes that caught my eye.  A few are old favorites I haven’t made in a while, and others are recipes I’ve saved for years but never took the time to make even once!

All together I had pulled twelve dinner recipes from the collection.  Some I had taken off of blogs I read others were snipped from magazines. A couple I had picked up at that rack in the produce department of the local market and a few I had copied from cookbooks in a friends kitchen late one summer evening.

With almost 12 weeks left until 2012 comes to a close, I realized that aiming to make one of these recipes a week was a reasonable goal to keep myself from catching kitchen boredom through the start of winter.  I’m also thinking that making a point to cook at least one meal a week is likely to help keep me focused on making healthy food choices through the holiday food overload.

Am I the only one that has a large collection of unused and never-been-tried recipes on my shelves?  [By the by, the unused cookbook collection on the two bakers racks in the kitchen is a MUCH bigger situation – maybe if this dozen challenge goes well I’ll work through some of those next!]  I invite you to join me in a similar challenge and spend some time in your kitchen making something fresh over the next three months. 

Look through your own recipe collection and make a list of a dozen recipes.  Or pick twelve from your Pinterest boards.  Or choose a dozen from your favorite foodie blog.  Then figure out how you’re going to work through the list.  Either assign a recipe to each week based on your holiday schedule, be spontaneous and choose a recipe off the list each week as it comes, or perhaps assign recipes to yourself by drawing out of a hat.  However you decide to choose, get your recipes together and let me know you’re in for this fun challenge, too!  I’d love to hear about your recipe successes and confusions along the way.  [I hope there aren’t very many confusions!]

So, tell me – are you in?