try one new recipe every week

1. A quinoa pilaf (off the back of a packet)
2. Curry Pilaf with chick-peas and couscous (which I substituted for quinoa because I’m gluten intolerant)

The second recipe was from A Taste of Heaven and Earth by Bettina Vitell, a very underused cookbook in my collection. I think it’s because there are no photos that I don’t pick this up enough. But, it’s full of very healthy and easy recipes so I hope to revisit it further while I’m doing this goal.

to try and increase my repertoire from my cookbook collection. I tend to find that I stick to one or two favourite dishes from each book and after awhile stop trying anything new. Tonight I cooked tofu steak from Harumi.

On New Year’s I made a fancy fruit tart which turned out beautifully… I was so proud of myself for that one!

Lately, in an effort to get healthy, I’ve been making a new recipe nearly every night.

Sunday: Chinese style hotpot with fish stock, mung bean threads, mushrooms, kelp, spring onions and tofu – good but very different flavors than I usually work with.

Monday: Pasta with a roasted red-pepper sauce – delicious!

Tuesday: Soup of quinoa, black and kidney beans, and kale – very healthy, pretty good but needs more seasonings.

Today: I’m planning roasted potatoes and kale, with sausage on the side… hope it will be good!

1: Jack Daniel’s chicken alfredo pasta. Turned out okay, needed more alfredo and more bite to the jack daniel’s sauce – less sweetness. Tasted yummy, just not as close to the original as I wanted

2: Indonesian pork satay. Too much peanut butter not enough coriander. I didn’t like it, but husband did.

3: Lemon cream sandwich cookies. Sooooo good, and not as hard as I’d feared.

Whether a new sandwich, dessert, or entree…just something to spice it up around here!

This is the goal that I am having the most difficulty with. I love everything about good food but I don’t really love the cooking itself… and because my partner is a great cook, I don’t really need to.

But it’s still a good goal.

I am going to keep it on my 43 things list a while longer and see…

I haven’t been cooking much at all, so even when I do cook one of my old trusty standards, its novel. Hopefully, when life settles down more this fall, I’ll start this goal back up again.

But yesterday I made some chicken with Italian spices, tomatoes, mushrooms, spinach and couscous. I hadn’t made it before and it tasted pretty good. It did feel more like a concoction of what I had in the kitchen, rather than a conscious cooking endeavor so I’m not going to count it towards this goal. Still, last week I had been slacking so its good to get started with cooking again, even if it is a random toss-together dish. :)

I have been a slacker when it comes to cooking these past two weeks. I’d been enjoying this goal, and I’d like to keep it up. I’d actually like to get back to cooking all of my meals in general. Oh well, I still have the weekend, and next week is another week.

The grocery store didn’t have ground lamb to make lamb and bulgur meatballs. :(

But I did attempt chicken and white bean chili, served over polenta. It’s all right, definitely edible, but not the most delicious thing I’ve ever had in my life. It’s a little thin because I forgot to buy tomato paste, and I think I was a little too timid with the spices. But I will certainly attempt this one again.