Happy New Year!
This year is already off to a great start.
Don’t you just love a fresh start to evaluate your life and make some new goals?! I’ve spent some good time breaking in my new Rifle planner, I’ve decided that my phrase for the year is “moving forward,” and I’m ready for a great January and rest of the year. My family members and I have even started planning spring and summer trips and vacations- what fun!
Last year, I made good use of my food resolutions and:
- Cooked a pot roast, finally!
- Made some new Indian recipes
- Launched my blog survey and made improvements from it
- Cooked for others and hosted a few dinner parties
- Gave up meat for Lent
For 2017, I’m looking to get more focused on my blog posts, offering posts and recipes that you can really love and use in your day-to-day life. I would also like to try lots of new recipes!
1. Cook from paper
Are you like me and have a stack of cookbooks and plastic baggies full of cut-up recipes from magazines? Maybe you are or maybe you’re not, but I think it’s about time for me to focus on cooking from books and “paper” recipes. So, I’m making a goal of only cooking from paper recipes for the month of January (no online recipes allowed). While I’ll keep posting wonderful recipes on the blog, I won’t be cooking from other blog recipes to explore what I’ve already got in my extended recipe box. I’m also excited about this because I got my husband a killer cookbook for Christmas, and we’ve already started cooking from it!
2. Give up something
I know this was on my list last year (when I ended up going vegetarian for Lent), but I would really like to try this again. Maybe I can give up sugar…not sure, but maybe. Or maybe I can give up dessert. Or maybe I should give up fast food. There are lots of options, and you know I’ll be blogging about it.
3. Focus on my budget, help you save $
For the past few months in our house, our budget has been well, not exactly an exact science. With Paris travel, hosting Thanksgiving and traveling for Christmas, we spent a lot on different unexpected things. Although it was a great year of travel, I want to focus on getting my food (eating out/grocery, etc.) budget more exact. I hope to also help you save money with my How to Save Money monthly series on the blog.
4. Host Sunday Dinners
Although we have family over for dinner quite often, I would really like to invite more friends over for dinner. This is probably a goal I have every year, but I think if I start doing Sunday Dinners once every few months, then I can just make a bunch of food and invite lots of friends over to partake. Our new dining room table can help us fit everyone, too.
5. More homemade foods
In 2017, I would love to make more homemade things. I’m talking homemade pasta, gnocchi and ricotta as a few that come to mind. It’s always fun to see how many store-bought things you can eliminate from the pantry and fridge. Maybe once I get those things down pat, I can incorporate them into a Sunday Dinner?
Do you have any food resolutions for the new year?
Happy 2017, ya’ll!