It's a brand new year, and we're feeling refreshed, energized, and ready to tackle a whole new set of cooking projects. Thinking of diving into Chinese cooking? Baking bread every week? Eating entirely locally? Take a look at what the Kitchn editors have planned for the coming year, and share your own cooking resolutions for 2010!
Kathryn: I would like to master the mother sauces!
Emily: I want to learn how to make (and document) favorite family dishes, such as my mom’s Vietnamese sticky rice cakes, my dad’s marinated tofu, my great uncle’s Slovenian nut bread, and my boyfriend’s mom’s Korean pancakes.
I'd also like to really dive into my Indian cookbooks … and maybe, by the end of the year, feel confident cooking Indian dishes without recipes. Another goal is to bake bread regularly. I’m looking forward to using the new Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day book.
Elizabeth: I want to cook more from my cookbooks. I’ve got cookbooks I’ve never opened, and I know they’d inspire some different techniques or dishes. Also, I want to throw more boozy brunch parties!
Joanna: Make more salads! That’s my everyday goal, and I just got a mandoline, so I’m already itching to slice up every vegetable I see. I also want to have more casual, simple dinner parties without waiting for a special occasion or making a big elaborate spread. My big project goal is to make molé.
Mary: My cooking resolution is to do more baking – as a kid I used to experiment and bake all the time. I stopped about 15 years ago. Now that our 6 year old son is developing an interest, it is time to get back into the chemistry of baking. We are also fairly European-influenced in our cooking, so in 2010 I want to try more Asian dishes.
Sara Kate: I want to continue trying new things: having a food-curious toddler has helped me this year explore new things (conch!) both as a cook and an eater, and for 2010 I’d like to continue that with my daughter. Children have that great way of making you young and curious again.
I also want to get a better grip on the way food and wine interact. I’ve sort of scraped by on this one. I’d like to have a little more confidence, not in a fussy way, but in a way that would get me excited about picking wines outside of the little box of wines I know I like. And finally, I'm planning to take more time to chat with farmers at the farmers’ market.
Dana: I never made that cassoulet, so I’m carrying it over into 2010! I’m also going to continue exploring my relationship to meat, paying close attention to the questions and ambivalence. My chicken and egg CSA is helping with this by not removing the heads and feet of the chickens they bring us.
This sounds basic, but as someone who lives alone, I don’t cook enough proper meals for myself, electing instead for quick bread and cheese suppers. So in 2010, I hope to cook more veg and greens and proper suppers.
Faith: This year, I want to clean the kitchen thoroughly and do a mini-Cure, paint the kitchen and breakfast nook, and do a few more little things to get them in nicer shape. I also want to make the 10 or 15 recipes that have been on my to-make list!
I'd also like to fast for a morning or entire day once a week. Being so immersed in food and cooking has at times made me feel like I can’t appreciate food or savor it like I used to. The best way for me to return to a point of welcoming food and appreciating it is to go without for a little longer.
Sarah: I'm going to brave the world of alternative baking. I’d like to push myself to bake with less sugar and use sugar alternatives, flour alternatives, binder alternatives, the works. In addition to traditional veggie/fruit CSA’s, we’ll also be striving to eat as local as possible when it comes to meats and cheeses. We’d like to be eating less of it, but when we do, we want ingredients that sing.
I'm also planning on building a stock of food. My husband and I believe firmly in having more than just a stocked pantry, but having a years supply of food on hand—like the Boy Scouts say, always be prepared. We’ve accomplished it quite well in the past, but we’d like to add more diversity since you can only eat so many black beans. At the same time, we’d like to be on the ball when it comes to canning up extra CSA ingredients to add to the stock.
Emma: Like Elizabeth, I have a lot of cookbooks sitting on my shelf that I hardly ever open. My goal this year is to cook at least one cookbook recipe every week. I'd also like to explore Chinese and Indian cooking a lot more!
What are your goals, dreams, and ideas for cooking projects in the coming year?
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Emily,
I think your idea of collecting family recipes is great!
I forgot to add - the saddest day of my life was the day my Dad died. The second saddest? Two weeks later when I realized that all his great recipes went with him to his grave. He never wrote them down. He was a FANTASTIC chef!!
More bread baking and moving beyond the no-knead recipe that appeared in the Times 3/4 years ago. Also, cook and have more meals from my freezer and pantry; making judicious use of leftovers and those items that I bought in bulk and froze. This, in turn, will hopefully save money!
Also expanding my bread baking. Always eating at the table. Finally, I am drawn to recipes that use a variety of flours (quinoa, buckwheat, almond, etc) but would like to get comfortable creating my own recipes with these ingredients.
Never did make that angel food cake (though I did buy the pan), so that's a carry-over for 2010. I've begun baking bread (my "Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day" experiment did NOT go well, alas). There used to be several very good bakeries in my neighborhood (and several more mediocre ones), but they're all GONE!! AUGH! I'd like to get in a bread-baking habit that I can sustain.
I too want to master the mother sauces, as well as any other classical staples I have time for. I also want to cook from my Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day book.
More veggies. Last night, I made a trio of winter vegetables for dinner (Brussels Sprouts with White Beans, Cauliflower with Indian BBQ Sauce, and Broccoli with Lemon Juice and Anchovies) - I'm going to try to have a dinner like that at least twice a week!
My mother tried that 'enough food in the pantry for a year' thing. Lots of it went bad before it was ever used.
Cooking more and resisting take out. More menu planning-and hopefully we can purchase a small dining table this year so that we can stop eating off tv trays. I hate that!
Happy 2010!
More potluck-style dinners! I love hosting them and I want to have more friends who enjoy hosting/attending them. What it boils down to is, I love entertaining but tend to get obsessive about having things "just right" and being the perfect hostess. I want to have more fun with food and entertaining in 2010.
Having more dinner/food parties. We started yesterday with a "Bring an Unresolved Issue and a Dish to Share" pot luck.
Sticking to my food project - cooking (or eating) through a year's worth of National Food Holidays.
In the process, I shoud be learning new things and trying different foods. Also, I will be brushing up on my photography skills.
No potlucks for me...maybe you have friends who make fabulous food but I find most potlucks I attend consist of unwholesome if not equally unappetizing dishes.
quit being a baby and try and bake some bread. Also going to try going mostly meatless. by "mostly" I mean "except for bacon"
I really want to learn how to make moles and other Mexican sauces.
I also want to master making homemade corn tortillas.
Oops. Meant to add: my other goal is to make menu plans and stick to them, both when I shop and when I cook throughout the week. I'm so terribly wasteful with my food and I need to stop.
I want to become a pasta making pro.
@Dana, single folks unite! I usually throw an egg on pasta and call it dinner. My goal this year is to embrace the time crunch and made lunch my main meal with dinner as a quick afterthought before bed like yogurt with fruit or something. I also want to at least include a veggie or fruit with every single meal and minced garlic doesn't count.
This year I'm going to make bread. Last year my goal was to get comfortable with yeast, and I feel like I cheated by just making pizza, bagels, and cinnamon rolls. Though it was delicious cheating.
Collect family recipes, try out more new recipes.
My goal is to be better at menu planning and sticking to it, less spontaneous eat out nights, and being less wasteful with the food I buy, (due mostly to spontaneous eat out nights!)
Another goal is to figure out a few good make ahead or crock pot meals for nights when dinner won't be until 8 and I am too tired and hungry to cook.
I would also like to try the no knead bread thing. I bought the artisan bread in 5 minutes book, but I am afraid that that much bread could lead to some major pounds on the hips which I do not need.
two things: 1) keep better track of what is ACTUALLY eaten in the house and 2) bake own bread
Use my CSA allotment more wisely -- a) have one recipe handy for right away eating (either the CSA newsletter or other source) and b)a preservation recipe -- something I can cook and freeze/can.
2009 was the year I tried a CSA, so I'm already signed up for 2010. I do have to say that the first year can be overwhelming, so give yourself permission to waste some portion of the initial CSA, if you can. By 2011, I may even work up to a full share, rather than the half share I have now.
@Dana - If you make a go for the cassoulet this year, I'd love to hear about it! I tried a vegetarian one for a potluck, but it didn't live up to the hullaboo.
I want to master bread making this year. :)
my food resolution is about trying new things in the kitchen--mostly new ingredients, but also new techniques. i explain more here and will be documenting my progress as I go: http://theweekendgourmande.wordpress.com/2009/12/30/a-new-years-resolution-and-breakfast-for-two/
Buy a slow cooker and learn to use it - to make cooking cheaper cuts of meat possiblenad delicious. Also, to stick to meal planning and making shopping lists as this was starting to work really well before the holidays intervened!
I'd also love to bake more and try decorating what I make.
Cook more, period. This involves more meal planning, and surplus cooking and prep on the weekends to make things easier mid-week.
Include more meatless meals in our diet.
And, attempt to replicate the paneer naan my boyfriend has been wishing for ever since he tried it in London's East End.
PLAN AHEAD! I'm bad at that, so often I throw together easy meals or worse, go out and spend money because I don't feel like cooking or doing the dishes.
Speaking of: DO THE DISHES! I procrastinate them. A lot. It needs to stop.
And - COOK FROM SCRATCH! I've actually already been doing this quite frequently. Now if only I can keep it up! Lol...
1. Expand our garden to more than just herbs and tomatoes.
2. Bake bread more than just once a month.
3. Learn to can and preserve summer produce.
1. To build and keep a well-stocked pantry. I mean build the contents, not the physical pantry.
2. Plan meals and shop more efficiently.
3. Bake.