Remember those cooking resolutions we made back in January? We know that resolutions made with the best of intentions at New Year's have a tendency to lose their draw as the months progress, so we thought we'd check in, see how things are going, and share our own progress!
New Year's Cooking Resolutions: How's It Going?
Here's our status update from our original list of resolutions:
• Make Homemade Pasta - As you might remember, we brushed the dust off our pasta maker a few months back and made a very successful batch of pasta. It was delicious and much easier than we thought it would be. Despite that, we haven't made any more pasta since, so unfortunately, we feel that we can only claim partial success on this particular resolution.
• Master the Frittata - We've been quietly working on this one behind the scenes. Our first frittata was a valiant effort, and we've been diligently following the advice you gave us in response and carefully tweaking our technique. We're not ready to call ourselves "masters" yet, but we're well on our way.
• Throw a Dinner Party Every Season - Part of this resolution also involved working to overcome our entertaining anxiety, and we're very happy to report that this has been a success. We've actually thrown several parties in the past few months - more than one a season - and each time, we've concentrated on planning ahead, simplifying the recipe, and toning down our perfectionism. It's definitely getting easier to entertain without anxiety!
• Try New Wines - Another partial success on this one. We've definitely been trying new wines, but it's been a bit haphazard! We intended to keep better records of what we were trying so that we could form a good picture of our tastes and preferences. As it is, we remember to record our tasting impressions maybe half the time. On the plus side, we're much more adventurous in what we try and more willing to take a risk on the recommendation of the wine seller or waiter.
• Cook Recipes from Cookbooks - This is the only resolution that we really dropped the ball on. Since January, we don't think we've cooked a single recipe from any of our cookbooks. What's even worse, we totally forgot that we were intending to! Oh, dear!
So our resolutions for the next few months are to make pasta again, keep better records of our wine-tasting, and make at least three recipes from actual, physical, printed cookbooks!
How have you been doing on your resolutions? Any new ones to add?
Related: Cook Something New This Weekend!
(Image: Flickr member obo-bobolina licensed under Creative Commons)
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Projects, Inspiration, Holidays - New Year's, resolutions, New Year's resolutionsRelated Links
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1) Master frosting! Well, my buttercreams so far have been bad and fair. My cream cheese frostings have been EXCELLENT, however. I'm going to try the Swiss Buttercream from this website on the next cake, and I've got a little can of meringue powder to try a Decorators' Icing from Martha Stewart. I have never made this much CAKE! But I do think there's hope that my daughter's New Year's Eve cake frosting will be excellent (unlike 2008).
2) Cook less. Ha.
view cmcinnyc's profile
My resolutions were to #1 conquer something with yeast. I DID! I made pizza dough first, it was fun until I tried to roll it out for calzones. I ended up in tears, and it didn't make it onto my blog. BUT not long after that, I made homemade pretzels & then homemade sandwich bread! I've since decided I went about backwards. The bread was the easiest, the pretzels the second easiest, and the pizza dough the hardest! I'll try my own dough again sometime in the future, but first I want to make homemade bagels!
My #2 resolution was to meal plan more. Unfortunately I have sorta failed at this. But the main reason is, after I wrote that resolution my work schedule COMPLETELY changed, and now I work evenings-overnight & a compressed schedule. This has lead to really random eating at random hours. So my new goal would be to prepare something on Sunday or Monday that is healthy, easy, and I can eat on through Wednesday or so.
view UptownGirl's profile
Oh, if anyone cares, here's the pretzels, and here's the bread.
view UptownGirl's profile
Nice job mastering yeast, Uptown Girl!
view EmmaC's profile
My resolutions were both pretty big
#1 to only buy Canadian produce, dairy and meat products (and the closer to home the better). I have done really well at this. I think three avacados is the extent of my sins. Oh avacado...why don't you live here?
#2 to stop buying processed foods. Doing pretty good here too! I have done all my own baking, including bread. I think I've bought one package of wraps and one of english muffins since christmas. And the only snacks we've gotten have been the occasional healthy chips.
All in all, I'm pretty happy!
view Hanna's profile
Numbers 5 (compost) and 6 (start a garden) on my list are going well. My first batch of compost is almost ready for use and the tomatoes and eggplants are in the ground. Now I just need to get on numbers 1 (jam) and 2 (pickle)!
view kitchenplay's profile