Food Goals 2012

Happy New Year! I am having a hard time believing that 2012 is here already! 

I took the week between Christmas and New Year off, meaning that as of tomorrow I will have been off work for 11 days straight, which has been wonderful, and has also given me a lot of time to think and plan for this coming year. In that vein, I have a few food/blog goals for this year, and here they are!

Blog Goals:

1. Blog here (and at my other site) three times per week. Three times a week here will probably include: a menu plan, one thing I've baked, and one recipe I've made recently. This will allow me to share some of the fantastic things I've made over the past year and ongoing, like this easy and delicious soup, which I would make and eat every week if my family didn't like more variety:

 

2. Work on an idea I've had for a while that combines two of my favorite things: data collection and finding/planning meals. I'm pretty excited about this possible side business that I want to pilot test soon. (My data/research geek is showing, isn't it?)

Food Goals:

This year, I want to make from scratch:

1. Ricotta/Paneer

2. An Indian meal (including naan)

3. The perfect Tom Yum Gai (Thai chicken soup, that I love) 

4. Pho

5. Fresh noodles

6. My own sausage

7. Corn tortillas

8. Cheesecake 

9. Granola bars

10. Crackers

I have found all sorts of energy and motivation over the past week, which as probably coincided with completing two HUGE projects at work just before I left for the holiday, and I can't wait to tackle 2012 with renewed excitement and hunger!

Several items I would like to eat as soon as humanly possible

For some reason (I'm thinking baby growth spurt/increase in the amount she's nursing overall) I have been ridiculously hungry for the past couple of weeks. So, of course, it doesn't help that I've seen some amazing looking food on the internet while I'm stuck somewhere (work) without food. Here are several of those things that I would like to appear before me so I can eat/inhale them.

Egg Tostada Fritatta (thanks for posting this Cassie!)

It's Mexican Brinner, what could be better? Considering that breakfast burritos are just about my most favorite food ever, I'm thinking that there's no way I won't like this dish.

Hot Merguez Baguettes
I showed this to Aaron, saying something about how I wanted that in my mouth as soon as possible, and he made some sort of That's What She Said joke, which I totally deserved, but I still stand by my original statement, unintended double entendre aside.

Roasted Potatoes That Will Change Your Life
Potatoes? Good. Bacon? Good. Bleu Cheese? Good. Mixed together with a bunch of other yummy ingredients? Fantastic!

Patatas Bravas
When I was in Chicago for work a couple of weeks back, I met up with my college roommate for tapas, and this was my favorite dish of the night (or at least tied for favorite dish with baked goat cheese in tomato sauce served with slices of garlic bread).

Lemonade with Black Raspberries and Lavender
We went to a local jazz festival not too long ago and one of the vendors had sage-infused lemonade. It was one of the best things I've ever drank, and now I'm all about trying any herb-infused lemonade I can get my hands on. This one looks particularly delectable.

Mint Chocolate Cookie Dough Poppers
I usually crave savory foods, but ever since I saw Kim post about these, they have been on my mind. It has been a while since I've baked anything, and these may just be the thing to get me back in the kitchen.

Perfect Iced Coffee
I am not at all ashamed to admit that I cannot make it through my morning without a cup of coffee. However, it's been hellishly hot lately, and it's sometimes hard to choke down my hot cup o' joe. With temperatures predicted for the 90s this weekend, I may have to finally try this recipe.

Sourdough Starter

I have serious love for the website Serious Eats, but I don't visit it very often. The main reason is because my husband has requested that I not, because every time I do, I get ambitious, and he sometimes grows weary of my kitchen experiments (and the accompanying messes).

Take the Sourdough Starter-Along that started on my birthday last year. I really wanted to do it, but given that I was 9 months pregnant and it was the holiday season, I decided to wait until later. I stumbled upon it again a couple of weeks ago and decided that right when I was going to start back to work was obviously the perfect time to get a starter going. Of course.

So I started at day one, with my clean jar, kitchen scale, flour, water, and spoon. I measured carefully, stirred it together, covered the jar, and waited. Two days later I started seeing bubbles!

I know it doesn't look like much, but it's pretty exciting (to me at least) that just flour and water and some magical little beasties (bacteria and yeast from the flour, water, and air) can come together, and with minimal effort and just over a week, be strong enough to make a loaf of bread rise!

Here's where I admit to being a horrible food blogger and not taking a picture of the bread I made. It was a nice looking loaf, but it also smelled delicious and came out of the oven while I was in the middle of making dinner, and then by the time that was over we were all starving and so, well, it disappeared before I could take a picture. The result was just slightly sour (I didn't leave my dough rising long enough for it to really develop that sour flavor), but I ended up with a nice, light loaf of bread.

Since you have to feed your starter every day, I had enough again on Sunday night to start some pizza dough for the pizza we'll eat tomorrow. And I had enough this morning to make more dough should I want to, but alas, I was out of time, so I put it in the refrigerator to sleep for a few days, until I have time to bake again.

With all the craziness in my life right now, it probably was not the best time for me to start this, but I have to admit, it's kind of fun to have this little project that doesn't take much active time but that also yields some pretty fun and tasty results.

(Even if you don't make the starter, it's pretty fun to read the Starter Along posts. I used the bread and pizza dough recipes from that series for my first starter experiments, but I can't wait to branch out!)

Weekend Baking 11.5.10

When it gets to be this time of year, my desire to bake grows increasingly strong. Probably because it makes the house warmer and deliciously scented, but also because of the holidays. There are several things I'd like to bake this weekend, but I'm going to have to pick one or two because it's not possible for us to eat all of the food we currently have in the house. I'm going to have to split this list up over several weeks, but that's okay. Something to look forward to, right?

On my list are:

• Homemade bagels
• These homemade Twix bars that seem mentioned to be on every site I read and on Twitter lately.
• Banana Bread
• Cinnamon Chai Cream Pie
• My mom's corn bread if she ever gives up the recipe. It's to die for.
• These very in-season Pumpkin Maple Rolls
• Or a pumpkin scone of some sort
• Or of course, these Pumpkin Spice Donut Muffins (something pumpkin is definitely happening this weekend)

Are you baking this weekend? What are you making? What else is on your list?

Have Made/Want to Make

It has been far, far too long since I've posted here regularly. Now that summer is here and both Aaron and I have been a lot more busy at our jobs, we've been doing many more fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants meals. It helps that we have a refrigerator full of vegetables and a stocked pantry, because it means we can get away with this most of the time. We have made some delicious meals lately (although all of us would regularly prefer to be eating more cinnamon rolls), and there's a big, growing list of recipes I want to try.

Things we have made:

• Pizza - using The Pioneer Woman's dough, and barbeque sauce (see above)or this delicious sauce (without the anchovies because I didn't have the paste on hand) and any variety of vegetables we have sitting in the fridge. I also made breadsticks using this dough by rolling out the dough, brushing it with garlic butter, and sprinkling on parmesan cheese, then baking according to directions. They were easily the favorite part of dinner that night.
• Sesame Noodles - we added in some crisp-tender steamed veggies to make this even more delicious, and because we are determined to throw away as little of our bounty as possible. 
• Spicy Bok Choy and Noodles (will post the recipe soon)
• Mixed Vegetable Pancakes
• Cinnamon Bun Pancakes
• Zucchini bread - we are, like everyone else, up to our ears in zucchini these days, and this recipe makes the best bread/muffins I've had

Some things I want to make - the top of the list:

• Buffalo Chicken Mac and Cheese, because, DUH!
• Zucchini Fries with Romanesco Sauce (Tastespotting has a ton of delicious looking zucchini recipes right now, in case you need some zucchini inspriation.)
• Homemade Big Macs
• S'mores Cake (or classic s'mores made with a peanut butter cup instead of the usual chocolate bar)

There's so much more on the to-make list, but I'm out of time. And also, now I'm hungry.

To Do

Even though I've been cooking and baking for a long time, and have made many things that my friends think take some skill, there are still more than a few things out there that I'd like to try to make. So, I figured tonight I'll post the start of my list and in the next few months I'll try to make them and post about it here. Might as well start tackling my cooking/baking goals, right?

Here are things I'd like to make/master (all from scratch):

• pierogis
• whoopie pies
• macarons
• coq au vin
• beef bourguignon
• cheese - mozzarella, paneer, cheddar, ricotta
• caramel corn
• 100% whole wheat bread
• sourdough bread (with my own starter)
• granola/granola bars
• yogurt

I think that's a good start to a list, if not almost a little too ambitious. This is going to take me a while to get through!