A New Year! Any foodie goals for the year ahead? (467 views)

I'll start.

One of my biggest goals for the year is going to be to do more to preserve my own garden harvests. I love my vegetable gardens, but too often laziness or a busy life gets in my way of making the most of what I harvest. So this year I am determined to change up what grow so that I am better able to utilize it. To this end I have two new canning books and I am very excited to dive deeper into the world of home canning. I plan to use these next winter months to carefully go through all my canning books, choose recipes I want to make and then plan the garden accordingly.

I really do want to get back to food blogging. I've made a lot of good things this last year, but you'd never know it. I think that food blogging is so over-saturated right now, BUT almost all of them monetize and utilize irritating tools like pop-ups and e-mail newsletters. I have never used advertising, and as such, I think my blog could be a breath of fresh air. First though, I need to rethink my voice and the direction I might want to blog for a season.

Health-wise, I am sure I echo many when I say I need to cut back on the sugar. I am anxious to have the rest of the holiday treats out of the house.

I also want to play with my love of soup. I try to only make it once a week for the family because DS cannot get on board with soup as a meal. I could eat it every day. So I should! Nourishing vegetable soups for lunch could go a long way for me health-wise.

I recently discovered savory teas made from things like vegetables, herbs and spices. So strange, but the ones I've tried have been absolutely delicious. I'd like to find more to try and start to think about replicating from my home garden.

Hmmm,

Same here, I would like to cut back on the added sugar. For me, that means to just not bring certain things in the house, starting with chocolate (at least not for simple snacking). But with that said, I wouldn't mind trying (and hopefully finding some desserts that are lower sugar, doesn't have to be beyond healthy for you (no quinoa kale coconut water brownies) but also made with better ingredients like whole grains, subs for some fats and such.

Not really a foodie goal, but drink more water.

And the oh so common, try to watch portion size more carefully for certain foods (no, I won't be measuring my lettuce, ha).

And, more interesting.... try more recipes and make more things using new ingredients and/or branch out and try different cuisines.

I said it so many times I should just do it, and finally cook dry beans -- you would think it was something complicated or I would be wasting lots of money if I didn't like it. And just think of the cabinet space I would gain given the number of cans of Goya beans I typically have on hand (and so much easier to carry home from the store!). Just buy the beans! I've never made something with yeast, so should give that a try. Maybe try a dessert that is not just a simple cake or cookie (I'm not saying it has to be complicated, but just a bit more advanced). It could be something as ordinary but delicious as homemade apple pie (that looks and tastes great!). Get better at cooking red meat (not talking ground beef) -- I only make it maybe 2x per year, and sometimes it is just ok. And I've never roasted a whole chicken (what!).

Add some more variety to my meals, whether that means trying a new type of main, making new sides, trying new veggies. Add some more variety to breakfast -- greek yogurt or cereal getting more than a bit ho hum.

Kind of off-topic but get rid of the handful of cookbooks that I don't use (or simply don't really care for anymore).

Be good about menu planning (or at least have a fairly good idea on what is planned for the week). I find it super helpful, but still, some weeks I just don't do it.

I know there are others, just can't think of them right now. Off to snag some chocolate chips. Just kidding.

Fun to read other goals. I'm planing to write down some overall goals so I will be giving this more thought. I like to add some fun goals, to the more practical/sensible ones. Happy New Year!

After my success with bagels - thanks to KarenW and Erin Elizabeth - I want to try bread . I have made bread before but wasn't very successful - I am not very good at kneading! I also want to plant some veggies. Last year I planted tomatoes and not sure what I did wrong but they died after about four weeks. Previous years I had been successful so it really perplexed me.

More variety is a really good one! I don't know why side dishes always get pushed to the side (lol) but they do. And more variety would be most welcome.

As I read your list, I wished we lived nearby! I would love to get together and cook with you and encourage you in using dried beans and roasting a chicken. Wouldn't that be fun!?

Have you tried using your vacuum sealer to make anything sous vide yet? That might be a fun experiment.

Two goals:

Bagels! mcgee, after your success, I feel like I should get to these this year. The bagel scene where I live is dismal. I had a go-to local place and a go-to chain, but it seems like the bagels at both shops have slowly ballooned over the years and lost whatever taste they had. A few artisan places have sprung up, but I am not huge fans of theirs either. I do like a good poppyseed or everything bagel once in awhile so maybe I need to make them myself.

Korean food! I want to go out and eat Korean BBQ and bibimbap. As far as I can recall, I've never had Korean food.

Other assorted things I want to keep in mind: shop more often and buy things I need on sale; drink more during the day; choose new breakfast foods; go through the basement stash of kitchen items and get rid of what I don't/won't use.

mrswaz, I love canning and have done various kinds of preserving over the years (freezing). Happy to help or encourage! The Food in Jars blog as well as the 2 cookbooks Marisa McClellan has put out have given me some of my favorite recipes in the past few years.

applecrisp, I hear you on some of those goals! Esp. breakfast.

wallycat, I keep telling my parents that they need a vacuum sealer to help with the garden produce. I think it would be a great tool, but they have yet to go for it.

soupandstew, I started to do the same each new year a couple of years ago. I love going through my to-try folder and my stack of Bon Appetits and getting rid of things and/or adding things. It was rather freeing to get rid of many back issues and clean out some drawers when I started.

Oh, I already do a TON of canning and preserving. I've taken a course on it and everything. I absolutely love doing it, I just don't do enough of it. OR I'll do something like put up 36 jars of apple butter, when we realistically might use 6 jars over a period of two years. I also don't get out my pressure canner near enough- it's definitely a time commitment to pull that bad boy out and can something. My newest cookbooks are the brand new All New Ball Book of Canning and Preserving as well as Not Your Mama's Canning Book. Both have a lot of recipes that are new ideas- but have also been tested for safety purposes. One that caught my eye right away in Not Your Mama's was a recipe for Tikka Masala Sauce. I may not wait for garden season to make that one, as they suggest canned diced tomatoes can be used as a substitute.

I've been keeping track of what I use and don't use these last two years, and now it's time to branch out and do some new things- and stop making the things we don't use (or grow the veggies we don't eat). Pickle some veggies I'd never pickled before, try a new salsa or two, or pull out that pressure canner and make a couple of batches of soup. DH bought me a sauce maker for Christmas, so I'm excited to put up some actual sauces like marinara from my own tomatoes.

mrswaz -- That would be great fun! Too bad we don't live nearby, I would love to meet you. I will say I don't like dark meat so that does help explain never making a whole chicken (or turkey for that matter). As far as never cooking with dried beans, I think just in habit of getting canned, but 2017 could be the the year that I buy some dried beans and I use them! I can then see myself becoming one of those Rancho Gordo (or whatever the name is) converts, that posts about different beans. Ha. I'm having leftovers of the budgetbytes Beef Burrito Casserole tonight (using canned beans of course) -- I froze the leftover but haven't had tried yet.

I do need to really work on my variety -- I often think I eat the same thing over and over.

Ah, well that makes complete sense about roasting a whole bird then. I would definitely not go to the trouble if a good portion of the meat was not going to be used.

Would you believe I've never tried Rancho Gordo beans? All the raving about them... I love beans and we eat them quite a bit, but I've always been afraid that once I ordered from RG I would never be able to go back to grocery store beans. Of course, this year I grew runner beans and harvested them to dry and shell. They are probably the best dried beans I've ever had, but I wonder how much of that is also the satisfaction that I grew them myself.

Chickpeas are my favorite to choose as dried beans over canned, if you're looking for a starting point. There really is a difference in taste.