What are your eating/cooking/restaurant goals for 2011?

Mine are:

Eating:
1. Eat more fruits and vegetables
2. Eat less processed foods
3. Cook at home more.
4 Eat less (and exercise more!!)

Cooking-things I would like to make and never have
1. Borsht
2. Hummus
3. Baklava
4. Masala dosa
5. Pizza at home
6. Make more fruit desserts such as baked apples or pears (I've made these but need to explore more)

Restaurants I would like to go to:
1. Girl and Goat (is it over rated?)
2. Longman and Eagles (my son liked it)
3. The Publican (I like pork)

Please share if you'd like!!!

Unfortunately my eating goals are exactly the same! I especially have to cut down on carbs (the "bad" ones, at least), sodium and "bad" fats until my doctor stops giving me that shaming look. But until then it's a balls-out eating frenzy!

Cooking -
Master stuffed grape leaves, for no other reason than to polish off my jar of leaves.
Clean out every morsel in the house and buy only supplementary food until every last bit is gone...hopefully this will be completed by February. Then I can scrub everything down (and defrost the freezer) before filling it all back up again.

Restaurants -
Try every GNR (or at least attempt to). I'm already 35% of the way through.
Try Filipino and Korean (I only had Korean twice; TTOWA was great but is now gone, and that one around the corner from H-Mart, which was just decent.)
Finally get to the Maxwell Street Market, I think I'm the only person in Chicago that hasn't gone.
Set up another Plethora of Pie (hopefully with the aid of pairs4life) and a Flan-a-Thon®.


~Off topic: how do you spell Philippino? I keep getting that red line under the word... (ps: thanks AlekH!)

Pie Lady wrote:Unfortunately my eating goals are exactly the same! I especially have to cut down on carbs (the "bad" ones, at least), sodium and "bad" fats until my doctor stops giving me that shaming look. But until then it's a balls-out eating frenzy!

Cooking -
Master stuffed grape leaves, for no other reason than to polish off my jar of leaves.
Clean out every morsel in the house and buy only supplementary food until every last bit is gone...hopefully this will be completed by February. Then I can scrub everything down (and defrost the freezer) before filling it all back up again. Hooray, an excuse to eat lots of ice cream!

Restaurants -
Try every GNR (or at least attempt to). I'm already 35% of the way through.
Try Philippino and Korean (I only had Korean twice; TTOWA was great but is now gone, and that one around the corner from H-Mart, which was just decent.)
Finally get to the Maxwell Street Market, I think I'm the only person in Chicago that hasn't gone.
Set up another Plethora of Pie (hopefully with the aid of pairs4life) and a Flan-a-Thon®.


~Off topic: how do you spell Philippino? I keep getting that red line under the word...

Filipino.


Some good ones above, big cosign on the Korean and Maxweell St.

Bake a pizza. Get baked.

Distill grappa (not gonna happen). I'll drink grappa instead.

Finally prepare pacha at home.

Make it back to my favorite new restaurant of 2010 in Chicago - Barwaqo Kabab

Post a billion pictures from India, Palestine, Hungary and New York.

Habby New Years!

Pie Lady wrote:Cooking -
Clean out every morsel in the house and buy only supplementary food until every last bit is gone...hopefully this will be completed by February. Then I can scrub everything down (and defrost the freezer) before filling it all back up again.

Man, that's a great one. I wish we could do it; I'm gonna try to do some variation. Please let us know how it goes.

There is a thread on cleaning out the kitchen one bite at a time:

A post-Thanksgiving challenge: Eat things in your kitchen

This thread persuaded me to stop running to the store for something and dig deeper into my cabinets to improvise.

Regards,

I want to try one new recipe a month. Currently on the list are Jansson's Temptation, Caldo des Patas (not a tricky recipe, but I've never cooked with cows feet before), Bagna Cauda, smoked duck, Chinese pork belly, and confit of pork shoulder (from Charcuterie).

Sort of overlapping that is the goal that at least 1/2 of the new recipes are out of cookbooks I haven't used before.

I also want to get to 3 or 4 more GNRs that I haven't visited before.

eating wise:

- eat more dead animals than last year
- eat less vegetables
- savor & crave foie gras(Commanders NOLA in January will be the opportunity)
- drink more than last year

cooking:

- maybe get back into bbq(i am so bored with bbq right now and have been for months)
- more asian exploration
- visit more farms and less farmers markets

restaurants:

- do more food crawls

More Menu Planning for the home (I did this a few weeks ago and it let me try new recipes and feel great about cooking, I also am getting to some of those recipes I've been meaning to try)

Make a successful white sandwich bread (not fancy/or rustic)

Definitely do a Pie-a-thon with Pie Lady (hmmm, sounds like I should make a pie for the dessert exchange)

Prepare More food at Home

Cure my own olives ( I bought them but I'm not going to be home the next 30+ days to change the frakking water & I don't think I'm ready to tackle lye)

Plan to do an awful lot of canning next summer because with giving away canned foods as gifts, we are not going to make it through what I thought was a large stash for winter 2011

A green smoothie/blended salad a day- today's was a banana, handful of baby spinach, and a smidge of spiced quince poaching liquid

Commit to eating better tasting food (this falls into the go big or go home school of thought + can't afford it calorie wise )

Eat at high-falutin' restaurants in the summer when the bounty of produce is more readily available
Oh yeah, I almost forgot to include Pollan's Manifesto: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly Plants."

jimswside wrote:- try foie gras(Commanders NOLA in January will be the opportunity)

Consider it done! (At Perennial in 2009, )

Haven't been to Commander's (Palace, right?) since the late-70's -- hope that post-Katrina they were able to maintain ambiance (and spooky, Anne Rice-y feel of eating well in a brightly-lit room that windows out on an old bone yard).

David Hammond wrote:Haven't been to Commander's (Palace, right?) since the late-70's -- hope that post-Katrina they were able to maintain ambiance (and spooky, Anne Rice-y feel of eating well in a brightly-lit room that windows out on an old bone yard).

They did a real nice job of restoration after Katrina.

David Hammond wrote:

jimswside wrote:- try foie gras(Commanders NOLA in January will be the opportunity)

Consider it done! (At Perennial in 2009, )

Ill ammend my goals to "savor foie gras".

Restaurant Goals:
Take home half of what I order
David Burke's Primehouse (got a nice windfall coming from my employer being bought by a larger company with little hazard of losing my job)
Kuma's Corner (every time I've been in the neighborhood, I haven't had the time to wait)

Cooking:
Momofuku's ramen broth
Start making sausage (got the Kitchen Aid food grinder attachment for Xmas)

Eat FAR more seafood / fish in general. FAR more.

Eat my way through the freezer. Lotta top sirloin in there going on three years old.

Make sausages. Already have the casings, KA attachment, venison, other meats, fancy Penzey'$ blends, and a bunch of kewl ideas for flavors.

Use the bottom oven for the first time. (I actually plan on making cookies this weekend with the real reason being to load every rack with a cookie sheet.)

More trips to Devon!
More African food!

I have far too many, and will be happy if I accomplish half of them.

Eating:
- Eat more fruit
- Stop eating crap breakfasts and lunches.

Cooking:
- Plant my garden in some sort of ordered fashion so it doesn't become a jungle by late July.
- I've been on a big German and British cooking binge for the last few months. I have about 15 more recipes to try before I can move onto a Pizza binge.
- Pay more attention to details when I'm cooking and refine some of my standard recipes.
- Expand the variety of side vegetables I cook, and pay as much attention to those as to the main dish.
- Buy more whole animals (anyone interested in splitting a pig?).
- Plan out menus for the week, and try to have dinner ready early enough to eat it with my daughter every night.
- Cook for 30+ people at least once every 6 weeks.
- Finally pick up the oil tanks from my friend and build some larger smokers/grills.
- Buy a welder.
- Cure more meat!
- Brew more beer!

Restaurants:
- First time visits to Burt's Place, Girl and Goat, Schwa and Toons.
- Go to Rootstock, Longman and Eagle, and Takasahi at least once a month for all of 2011

Although the truth is mundane and expected, I might as well tell the truth. My goal is to eat healthier (more whole grains, fruits and vegetables, less simple carbohydrates and fat) and lose weight.

There, I've said it.

JoelF wrote:Restaurant Goals:
Kuma's Corner (every time I've been in the neighborhood, I haven't had the time to wait)

You can do this one now - in cold weather, they have takeout service.

I like the idea of drinking more. I plan to polish off all the non-cooking booze in the house. Yes, by myself.

Also, I have a file folder with 1,468 recipes in it. I'd like to get it down to at least 1,400, even if I add more.

Pie Lady wrote:

JoelF wrote:Restaurant Goals:
Kuma's Corner (every time I've been in the neighborhood, I haven't had the time to wait)

You can do this one now - in cold weather, they have takeout service.

Yeah, but I need a warm place to take it to. The 30-60 minutes it takes to get home would seriously harm the food quality.

Pie Lady wrote:Finally get to the Maxwell Street Market, I think I'm the only person in Chicago that hasn't gone.

Pie Lady - I haven't been to Maxwell Street Market either! Maybe we can make it an Event.

I have many similar goals to those posted here and a few of my own:

Eating/Diet/Exercise
1. Eat more fruits and vegetables
2. Eat less processed foods
3. Cook at home more
4. Exercise 30 min a day

Cooking-things /never made or need to be better made
1. Pie crust. I have yet to make a pie crust that is better than pre-made. Yes, my attempts have been that bad
2. Ma Po Tofu. Tried once...okay, not great.
3. Thai Chicken/Coconut/Curry soup. A promise that I need to deliver on to my son


Restaurants I would like to go to/Events:
1. The Purple Pig
2. Hot Dougs (still haven't been)
3. Tank Noodle
4. Sticky Rice
5. Honey 1
6. Attend 1 LTH dinner or event this year. Haven't been to one yet and I would love to meet the members in person.

EDITED TO ADD:
Pie-lady has inspired me. I will start out the new year (starting tommorow...tonight we are going out for dinner) with the urge to dig deeper into the freezer and pantry to make meals at home. Tomorrow will be beef stroganoff to get rid of the extra portabello mushrooms, onion, sour cream and garlic I purchased for the holidays along with the organic ground beef and frozen peas that have been in my freezer for nearly a year.

lemoneater wrote:

Pie Lady wrote:Finally get to the Maxwell Street Market, I think I'm the only person in Chicago that hasn't gone.

Pie Lady - I haven't been to Maxwell Street Market either! Maybe we can make it an Event.

Sounds good to me!

I want to get back to eating more locally produced foods. I was really good about it for awhile, then life got in the way and I got lazy.

Cooking-wise, I'm going to learn how to make duck confit so I can tackle cassoulet. While I'm at it, I'm going to do home made sausages for the cassoulet as well.

We're definiately going to brew our own beer and wine this year (it's been well over a year since we last did a batch of wine).

I'd like to get a chest freezer so we can buy half a hog and a quarter steer directly from a farmer.

And we finally have outdoor space of our own, so I'm going to expand my gardening this year and completely cover our deck with fruit and veggies.

Eat more...interesting, well crafted and bursting with flavor food.

I too am attempting to follow Michael Pollan's manifesto - 'Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.' We'll see how long that lasts.

I am also going to revisit my goals from four months ago :
- Bake a loaf of bread each week
- Rediscover my Indian heritage by cooking one new Indian dish each week

And exercise, exercise, exercise so I can keep eating.

I think I'm going to try pickling something.

Attrill wrote:I have far too many, and will be happy if I accomplish half of them...

Cooking:
...
- Buy a welder.

gastro gnome wrote:

Attrill wrote:I have far too many, and will be happy if I accomplish half of them...

Cooking:
...
- Buy a welder.

I'd like to think he's bucking the molecular trend by eschewing transglutaminase and fusing meat the old-fashioned way.

-Dan

Make spaghetti sauce from scratch with all fresh ingredients.

That's a good idea pie lady. I'd like to make more from scratch and now that I have the time I will experiment. Need to get more fruits and vegetables in. I'll probably make baked carmelized pears tomorrow so I am making good on my goals.