I plan to explore
- crock pot (slow cooker) dishes
- "silk purse from sow's ear" cooking aka making tasty and interesting dishes from inexpensive and common ingredients
- more with root vegetables, and with vegetables generally

I've also been enjoying two cookbooks, "Jerusalem" and "Plenty".

I resolved to continue cooking from scratch, using as few processed foods as possible, and continuing to produce my own as much as I can.

I also have decided that I need to cook more with what's on hand, in the pantry and the freezer, while continuing to try new recipes and ideas. That should be a challenge since I'm not close to anywhere I can buy strange, exotic or esoteric ingredients. Well, maybe not, sinceI I pretty much have to make a list and shop when I make a trip to Grand Rapids.

I've also decided that I need to figure out what I bought all those unusual ingredients for and make whatever it was. That includes the tamarind puree, the pomegranate molasses and all the odd spices in my spice drawer!

Annie

I

To actually make the recipes in the Food Network magazine that I love to read.

To try new ingredients instead of leaving them out of recipes.

To actually solve my solid coconut oil issues.

Annie, great idea. Take ingredients we haven't used and make something!

I've tried a new recipe each week for a number of years, but this year I will increase that to 3 new recipes each week. It's just so stinkin' easy to stick to those favorites.... Looking at more vegetarian and raw choices, while still keeping to a low-glycemic diet.

I've used buckwheat in the past, but I started out this year making a large file and a "ton" of post-it-notes in my cookbooks with buckwheat recipes to try. It's a good source of high-quality, easily digestible proteins, and a lot of other healthy things. Since it's a warming food, I'll work on these recipes while it's cold.

I'm testing the waters for the first 3-months of 2014 to see if I can successfully cut our food budget $25 a month from $125 to $100, and not compromise food quality or nutrition (which is much easier when the garden is in full swing). I always like a good challenge.... ;-) I was inspired after reading The Prudent Homemaker blog. Each month I'm successful I'll donate the savings to the Food Bank above our normal contribution.

-Grainlady

I generally have the same goals each year: eat healthy and eat less. If I make it to the end of the second week, it's phenomenal.

Grainlady, I've always been in awe of your ability to hit that food budget while eating well and healthily, if that is a word. I wish I could take lessons from you.

Grainlady, I too am always in awe of your ability to stick to your food budget. I have never had a food budget and I think this year you have inspired me to try and start one. I have never been one to stock food, I have 3 grocery stores with in a few blocks of my house, and a lot of times when I cook I run to the store to buy whatever ingredients I am missing. I feel as if every time I cook I am spending at least $20 and that I am wasting money. I would like to start meal planning using the wed. grocery sale papers and see if I can start budgeting a little. As for eating goals I think I want to try and be a little more adventurous with what I eat/cook. I will eat any fruit/vegetable/grain/bean out there but I have always been a little skittish with meats/poultry/fish and would like to try to be a little less picky with my protein and at least try some cuts/types of meat that I generally am afraid to try.

I'm going to add another 2014 goal
- To set and stick to a food budget

One problem has always been the dinner parties I have. So, next Saturday I have about 10 people coming. I'm going to figure out how to do this dinner party for a controlled sum. The helpful quirk is that I can ignore the cost of wine, because we have so much of it in the basement and people always bring more such that we usually add to the stash at every dinner party. Which means I can, for instance, use a less expensive protein and use wine and time to make it tasty. Coq au vin (chicken), boeuf bourguignon (stewing-type beef), or slow cooked beef shank, these seem like candidates.

This isn't original to me, but it certainly applies when on a tight budget:

Cook More,
Eat Less,
Waste Nothing.

["Cook More" meaning cooking from scratch, not convenience foods and eating out. Wasted food is the most expensive food we purchase.]

Grainlady is so on target. If you really want to save on food, you need to get into processing it and storing it. Or buying it processed for storing. Food is always best and least expensive when it is in season and/or processed close to the source. Doing it yourself or buying it from purveyors you know and trust goes a long way for quality control.

Speaking of that, my food resolution for this year will not be able to be tested out until next summer. But it is to not fall down on canning and drying tomatoes again! Last year I was sick and moving during tomato season. I hope it will be different this year! In fact, I hope to be able to resume my canning passion this year. I hope job, residence and health cooperate.

I bought a freezer for the garage so that I can store frozen vegetables and try to base meals on vegetables. I need to get Kevin to visit the Tuesday Culver City farmers' market more regularly, as they have a good selection of vegetables. The vegetable market near our house closed recently, and now it is less convenient to buy vegetables, and so I am hoping that freezing them will be a good alternative.

I have resolved not to grow tomatoes again. My tomato season is just now starting, and while I do have quite a few tomatoes on the plants, some of them are not growing as fast as the rest, and most of them are not making many new flowers - in fact, some of them have dropped a few flowers before they could make tomatoes. They just do not seem worth the effort, whereas I get good returns on the chili plants throughout the year. I think I should have grown Italian parsley instead of the tomatoes.

One thing I would like to do (but won't) is to keep bees. I'm afraid that there aren't enough bees around to pollenate my citrus trees. My grandmother had beehives, but she did not live in a city.

Maybe we should have a thread to discuss what odd ingredients we have in our pantries that we are not sure what to do with. I also have pomegranate syrup, but I have only used it on fruit. I use tamarind paste when I make Pad Thai, but not a whole lot else. I have separate sections of storage dedicated to Indian and Japanese cuisines, and that makes it easier to make Japanese or Indian dishes.

Lars

Doc has said to my wife and I that we gotta get serious about weight loss, and has recommended the Wheat Belly Diet; seems to be close to Paleo, no wheat whatsoever, and otherwise similar to Atkins/low GI diets. Farewell, bread, most pasta, rice, potatoes....hello, meat and salad.

The other resolution is that I'm gonna try to get good at cooking with my new sous vide setup. Still waiting on a part in the mail to complete it, but I've already got some stuff vacuum packed in the freezer to start with.

Add me to the tamarind bandwagon. I have the powder. I think I used it once, for some curry.

I ditto what BumbleBeez said! I hopped on the scale yesterday to find I had gained back all but 5 pounds of the weight I lost a year ago.

In addition to eating healthy & eating less, I want to try to prepare & eat more vegetarian dishes and more Indian dishes.

Becky (slowly backing away from the cannolis)

PS: Lars, I think you should start that thread on odd ingredients & what to do with them.

This post was edited by booberry85 on Mon, Jan 13, 14 at 14:00

Yes, I plan to cook and eat. Hopefully, a little less of the latter.

It's been a long time since I've posted here. The past few years have been very challenging, so cooking was hit or miss. I have a new(well newly renovated) home with my dream kitchen. I also have a new family situation and I am happier than I've ever been. Since moving in the weekend before Christmas, the kitchen has seen a lot of action. My goal is to cook for my family nightly, and invite my parents and my boyfriends mom over for dinner weekly.

My eating goal is to reduce the amount of potato chips I consume.

Tracey, I'm glad to see you back here, welcome home.

Annie

Thanks Annie, It feels good to be back and cooking. I hope to be baking soon, but I can't find anything since the move.

Annie, I need a few tablespoons of your pomegranate molasses to make the recipe below: I saw it made on the Chew the other day and it seems good.

Here is a link that might be useful: Chicken Pomegranate stew

Now that my son is solidly into eating "proteins" other than chicken nuggets/pizza/hot dogs (was that last year or the year before's goal?), I will work on starches, seems easier than veggies. He even went to the Men's Steak Out event and ate steak recently! He called me during dinner to say he loved it. I consider that obstacle knocked to the ground. While we don't make or buy red meat, he'll even eat that? Done!

He eats only bread with his protein/fruits/veggies... LOTS of bread. I have to bring that down to something more reasonable and I think I can wean him a bit with maybe a potato or rice then move on to beans or lentil types of foods. He's a mystery in the food arena! I'd love to expand beyond peas and carrots, but at least they're green and orange veggies.

I usually pick a cookbook and a cooking technique or ingredient to explore during the coming year. The 2014 cookbook will be Down Jersey Cooking - Celebrating our Heritage from Past to Present. Besides being a fascinating historical read, the vegetable recipes have me salivating. That's not unexpected from a book about The Garden State.

I met my 2013 goal of learning more about bean pot cooking with mostly positive results but am veering off course this year to edit a new edition of our family cookbook. That will be my major time-consuming cooking project.

Just catching up on this thread and so happy to see a post from Traceys. I still have the kitchen towel you gave me at our meet up in Skippack so many years ago. Nice that you are back here.

Just catching up on this thread and so happy to see a post from Traceys. I still have the kitchen towel you gave me at our meet up in Skippack so many years ago. Nice that you are back here.

That's funny Pam, because I still have the multicolored
spoon you gave me. It's made it through 2 moves in 2 years.
My daughter still has her apron too.

Tracey, it's great to see you back. How many years ago was that get-together in Skippack? I remember you bought a fancy apron for a very small daughter ......

I am planning more experiments with homemade pizza. I've got various kinds of tomato plants growing under lights to be planted in March and hope to incorporate fresh tomatoes into my pizza toppings.

For me it is to explore more tasty breads and such that are gluten free. Lots of interesting flours but some just taste awful and have not enough information on nutritional values for them. Nothing really tastes like wheat though so wrapping my head around flavor not comparison. I do have a handle on baked sweet treats - hey, anything with sugar tastes good!

Another is to do more dehydrating. I'd like to put together dried vegetables to have a soup mix to just add boiling water and wait a bit. Dried fruits and leathers are high on my list again, plus meat or poultry jerky, which I have never tried.

Nancy