What are your cooking goals and resolutions for next year? I’m thinking a monthly theme approach to help a general goal to try out new ideas and incorporate the theme at least 10 times in the month - eg ingredient of the month, technique of the month, cookbook of the month! I’m also planning to embrace forced creativity with several pantry/freezer challenges to hoard less food.
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Good topic!
I want to cut down on food waste- I get overly ambitious sometimes about cooking things and then find out I’m too tired after the work day. I end up wasting ingredients.
I want to cook at least 1 recipe a week from one of my cookbooks on the shelf and try to cook from different books. I find I have a ton of books that I like to read but end up getting recipes off the net rather than using my collection. I need to either make use of them or get rid of the ones I’m not using.
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Same here, net is an easy way out because of the search button. I would like to at least cook 3 recipes from each of the tons of cook books that I owned and never used for the coming year.
Also, would like to improve some of my basics of cooking, like making dumplings, gnocchis, bread, pasta…
I try not to be too ambitious, I read the same post I have created in 2016, and saw I didn’t do most of the things… 
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I have so many lists of ideas and recipes but tend to like something for a while and just keeping it. I’m hoping to try out new ideas from these lists which include recipes from the few cookbooks I own and told myself I would for sure use…
Do you know about eatyourbooks.com? I use it as my first go-to for recipe searches. I can type in an ingredient, dish title, and then filter by cuisine or meal type and see what I have on my shelf.
It is a paid site. I took a leap of faith and purchased a subscription during their build out phase, so have a lifetime membership. Worth taking a look.
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Agreed. I want to get back to a routine of making simple, healthful homemade soups and stews that we can eat for dinner once a week. This used to be a cold weather staple before life got in the way. Lentil soup and butternut squash chili, here I come!
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I think another resolutions: eat healthier. Tried cooking more tasty vegetables dishes. Now I tend to emphasis more on meat, bird or fish.
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This can be interesting for English books. I have a lot of books and magazines too in French (doh!!)
@naf. Yes. It is very US and UK centric. The two sisters who own/run the site live in these two countries.
Back on the low carb train. I’m very pissed off at myself, I pinched a nerve / bulged disc in my neck in March of this year, left me unable to work out for 12+ weeks. By then it was June and I was like well what the heck, let me take the summer off, now in December I have yet to get back in the gym and my diet has gone to complete and utter shit. I’ve gained 25-30lbs and I am thoroughly disgusted with myself !!
So 2018 will be back to meal planning, low carb and back in the gym.
Just out of curiosity does anyone have any experience with that Isagenix cleans / diet? I see some remarkable results in 30 days, was considering it to jump start things. Any feed back would be appreciated.
As someone who works in the fitness and nutrition space, I have very strong feelings against any sort of cleanse diets which are generally gimmicks and don’t promote development of good long term habits. Yes, incredible results in 30 days, then what happens?
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Well in my case, it’ boosts my motivation and that will in return help embolden my dedication to keeping it up. (stubborn results driven person, so a quick jump start helps motivate me to keep up the progress)
Thank you for this reminder - it’s time to get on Cuisine of the Quarter for 2018!
As for my own goals, reducing food waste is definitely one - I’ve become a bit lax about refrigerator management since we moved. I think part of it is that we now have a full-depth fridge instead of counter-depth. There is a lot more room and stuff gets shoved to the back so easily. Making sure to keep the contents of the freezer rotating is a challenge too.
Also, like NotJr, we have become somewhat lax about our low-carb lifestyles and put on a few pounds as a result. Focusing on creating some new low-carb recipes and using my sous vide circulator, smoker and other tools more should help motivate me to stay interested!
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This is a big one for me too. I buy things with the intent to make them, and then life gets in the way and the food expires/goes bad before I get to it. Not only do I need to manage my fridge/pantry better, but I also need to retrain myself about my shopping habits, and make sure I’m not buying stuff “just because” without knowing when I’ll be able to use it.
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All winter i make a big pot of soup/stew usually every sunday, a few servings go in the fridge for lunches and a dinner and the rest in the freezer which comes in handy on late nights or i grab a freezer soup for lunches.
I need to branch out more from my usual favorites in the new year!
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I like all types of soups, but unfortunate the other half isn’t fond of it. When I make a big pot, I need to have the same lunch for days. Freezing is a good idea for random soups.
Who doesn’t like soup???! My soups are all dairy free and vegetarian so they freeze very well, i also avoid pasta in the soup but i think the ones with quinoa and barley or other grains are almost better after freezing since they seem to soak up lots of flavor from the broth.
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After many years, I have converted Mr. SMT to Team Soup! Soup is our main course two or three times a week oftentimes during the wintertime. I always make enough to freeze at least 2 servings. There are nights [or lunches] when pulling a soup from the freezer is the perfect answer to the “what is for dinner” question.
I need to expand my repertoire of soups this year.
I have three bags of chicken parts in the “backup” fridge to make more stock, perhaps tomorrow. Chicken stock gives me some protein and then I surround it with tons of vegetable matter.
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I started making my own kombucha this year and would love to try a few other fermented foods like kimchi. Will probably have to wait until the weather is warmer, my apartment stays very cool in the winter and i have to use a warming mat for my kombucha to stay the right temp to ferment.
My other goal would probably be to push myself to take advantage of more unusal produce and ingredients available in nearby ethnic markets to add more variety to my rotation of favorites
Now that is a simple thing to make… if you can make kombucha, you can kick kimchi’s butt.
