All in favor of delicious dinner recipes, raise your hand!

All in favor of delicious dinner recipes, raise your hand!

Everybody loves to eat. If you've been cooking for a while say, a number of years it's easy to get in a rut, serving the same dishes over and over again. Most of us are too busy to be experimenting with untried recipes, particularly with food costs being what they are. So, although you ran across a brand new recipe that sounds good, you might be reluctant to try it for fear it won't be well received by family members and you'll have just wasted time and money. Back to Thursday meatloaf, a somewhat worn, but proven, delicious dinner recipe. Here are a few ideas to get you out of your cooking rut and into some new and truly delicious dinner recipes, with little risk of failure.

Let's start with that meatloaf. Your meatloaf recipe is the one your Mom used to make, with a nice brown gravy, topped with sauteed mushrooms. While you'll continue to serve it, try branching out on the meatloaf concept with something new. Just using different seasonings can refresh that recipe. How about turning it into a casserole? Hey, not a bad idea. Good for busy days, too. A one-dish meal is a heck of a lot faster to get on the table and reduces cleanup.

Try this for a new variation on meatloaf. Season your basic meatloaf mix with taco seasoning. Mix in some cheddar or hot pepper cheese in with the meat. Put the meat in your baking dish. Drain a small can of Mexican-style corn and distribute it evenly over the meat. Top it off with some mashed potatoes. Pop it in the oven. Ten minutes before it's done, add some more grated cheese on top of the mashed potatoes. This is a delicious dinner recipe, of which you may not have leftovers.

Lasagna is a favorite recipe in many households. This means your family enjoys Italian flavors, right? Expand your recipe horizons with a dish that's a little more exotic, but just as easy to prepare. Instead of lasagna noodles, buy some manicotti, those large tubes intended to be stuffed. Cook the manicotti and gently drain. Stuff the noodles with a mixture of cooked rice, diced, cooked chicken, finely diced onion, a generous amount of fresh snipped Italian parsley and a bit of nutmeg. Lay each noodle in a large baking pan, side by side and top with Alfredo sauce. This heavenly concoction makes delicious dinner recipe #2, to add to your repertoire.

You probably serve chicken at least once a week, if only for economy's sake. Ever made lemon chicken? This delightful Chinese dish is quite simple and almost foolproof, consisting basically of broiled chicken meat, topped off with a sauce made of lemon juice and cornstarch.

You doubtless know that there are millions of recipes available online, so if chicken manicotti or lemon chicken appeals to you, just look online for recipes that give you precise amounts, or a variation with ingredients your family likes. Your strategy is to take dishes your family already enjoys and just put a new slant on each. Once you start branching out, you'll become braver, buoyed by compliments, of course. Soon you'll have more family approved, delicious dinner recipes than you could serve in a month!