My 2026 goals include:
Revisiting bagels. I’ve made many, but I’ve never been very satisfied with the results. After giving it a rest for a few years, I plant to go back at it.
Overcoming my fear of Creme Patisserie. Such a wonderful world of tarts would open up for me if I would just get over it.
Why the fear?
I had to Google but I think I’ve eaten that once (or, at least, something very like it). Some years back, the city’s Christmas market used to have lots of stalls with regional European food - not just the stereotypical stuff. Whatever it was that I ate, it was there.
Just self-induced anxiety. The one time I made creme pat the texture came out grainy.
Repetition is the mother of learning.
I just need to knuckle down and get a few sucessful attempts under my belt. Hoping to make this year the year. 
Ah, you meant preparing it. My first thought was, fear of eating it? 
I often have unrealistic expectations. I expect things to turn out perfectly the first time!
Ha! While I have many (trivial) fears in life, fear of eating tarts is not one of them! 
Sounds like that was just bad luck. It’s pretty straightforward, especially if you use a recipe by someone known for accuracy and detailed instructions.
Pizza and focaccia.
My goal is to reduce portion sizes. And minimize the amounts of sweets I eat. I lost 20 lbs in 2024 but gained it all back in 2025 thanks to all the sweets I’ve been eating…
I am impressed with those of you that use an excel spreadsheet to keep track of your freezer items! I use a scratch pad and ballpoint pen from the dollar store…
I was an accountant for over 30 years… Old habits die hard. 
I do that in theory, but I am terrible at keeping it updated. In fact, I have a fun freezer excavation excursion planned to see what we need to get for the holiday meals…
I’m terrible at keeping my list updated as well and there’s no excuse since I have a small freezer. (I use the one above the fridge.) I thought of getting a chest freezer at one point but if I do that then I will just buy more stuff and I don’t want that. I live alone and I really don’t go through that much food… The tricky part is when I’m really low on food I will stock up on chicken, beef, fish, etc. all at the same time so I break everything down into single servings, I label the baggies, then shove them in the freezer and forget about them. Thankfully that doesn’t happen too often. And that’s also the reason why I clean my freezer religiously each month since there is always one random serving of something that migrates to the back of the freezer and isn’t on my list and to make sure that everything in the freezer is on my list.
My chest freezer has been a godsend. There are weeks when nothing is on sale, so I dig the freezer and come up with a meal.
Anytime I find something on sale or clearance that I think I can use to make a meal, it goes into the freezer and on the spreadsheet.
Oh, I’m fairly hip to what’s in the fridge freezer — it’s not very large & so easy to keep track of what’s in there (mostly ice cubes, lime leaves, bird peppers, dumplings, and ice cream 
), but the chest freezer in the basement is cavernous and full of all kinds of mysterious things… WEEKEND PROJECT! 
I’m guilty of this, I’ll freeze some leftovers and not label them. Thinking I’ll know what they are from looking at the package then I forget whether its a stew or a soup and what is in it.
I’ve got one freezer bag of soup or stew… it’s red, so I know its tomato based, but I have no idea what else is in it. I’ll just serve it at some point.
Yeah, I had a couple of old yogurt containers with shrimp and corn stock each. They looked identical. I took my chances and lucked out 
adding the Hageslag sandwich to my list of things to try in 2026
