Hey readers, I need you to weigh in on this: are you bored with this Kitchen Goals post on the 1st Tuesday of the month? Because I am a little. While I enjoy reading what’s going on in your kitchens, for months now, it seems the only thing I write each time is, “Still busy working on the Rookie class, it’s been all about basic survival lately, no goals besides that for this month.” Or if I do set goals, I never ever get around to them. Soon I’ll be back on track, but this is life sometimes. 
SO, tell me, do you want me to keep doing this post on 1st Tuesdays?
All you lurkers who rarely comment, I know it’s nice to be invisible sometimes, but do me a favor and come out of hiding just for today and let me know what you think, eh?
If you do like it, then let us know how your goals for last month went and what’s in the works for this month?
If you write about it at your blog, feel free to grab that picture above and leave us your link in the comments below!
- If you can’t find local sources or don’t have time to search them out, you can order healthy meat here.
- Have you heard about the GAPS diet that can cure Autism, ADD, ADHD, constipation, candida, asthma, learning / behavioral problems & depression?
- This is unrelated to Real Food, but check out the gorgeous vacation spots owned by my friend, Kimberly Hartke (Real Food blogger & Sally Fallon’s publicist).
{ 26 comments… read them below or add one }
I am pretty new to your site so I am not bored with the posts.
My kitchen goal this month would be to figure out how to deal with the half hog that is being delivered this weekend.
This is my first “First Tuesday,” so nope, I’m not bored.
I LOVE this idea, by the way.
So… I’ve been transforming our kitchen and what comes out of it for the past four years. Slow and steady wins the race. This month, I’m focusing on making ONLY breads/grains/seeds/legumes that have been soaked/sprouted. I’ve known of their importance for years and have made *some* things via the soaking method, but I’m ready to commit to *only* using sprouted/soaked. I think. I hope. I pray. Lord, help me.
For about a month I have been soaking/making all of my family
Sara Jane, just take the bread you’ve had such success with and turn it into buns!
Here’s my link to how to make buns and stuff though:
http://kellythekitchenkop.com/2008/10/variations-to-bosch-homemade-bread.html
WOW, this one might be a hard one for you to give up since people enjoy it. If your bored that’s not good. I have been around your site for a while now so I usually skip monthly kitchen goals. What if you take a break from it for a little while then come back to it.
This is my first Tuesday of the month! I am not bored obviously. This is good for me since I have so many goals and really need to pick baby steps to get us where need to be, especially for my dh, who is enjoying real food, but missing our pantry items
.
I worked last month on making my own broths/soups which I was very happy with. I couldn’t bring myself to put the bone marrow in my soups though – sorry it just looked so gross. I sadly lost two mason jars of frozen soup – I must have put them in the freezer too warm, I was very sad about that. I tried yogurt twice they were flops and I am still scared to try again and use my raw milk.
October Kitchen goal – planning better to be able to soak all of my grains. New tries – I want to add somehting new to our Nt diet – like beet kvass, which should probably be a priority since my dh and I and probably our girls are all of copper toxic- not sure where we got that, and showed our livers are being over worked. I think that has too be the copper since we have been chemical free for a few years. Any one have any great info about copper?
Obviously we have a lot of changes to make moving to the NT/WAP techniques.
Oh – and my kids have not asked for cereal/proccessed foods at all in the last month – they seem very happy looking the fridge for REAL food for snacks etc. They really love your pancake recipe too Kelly.
Kris
My goals have been dismal lately, but I don’t mind the post. :>)
I enjoy reading about everyone’s monthly goals. My goals always seem to be the same. Keep up with the bread baking, ferments, etc. After reading about it for awhile I am finally tackling buying seasonal fruits and veg. I haven’t done this before. I would just buy what I wanted at the grocery store. I am hoping to do better with my food budget with help from Nourished Kitchen. It’s ok with me if you want to stop this for now.
Hi Kelly, you know, I am embarrassed to admit this, but my kitchen is a goal free zone! It is basically all I can manage to serve up 3 real food meals a day for the hungry brood and (sometimes) keep the counters clean before I hit the pillow at night.
I am making a big pot of curried lentil soup today, but it wasn’t a goal, I can assure you! I found a bag of organic green lentils stuffed in the back of my pantry and decided that – hey, I need to use these up! Goodness knows how long they’ve been sitting in there.
It is encouraging to me to see everyone else’s goals because I sure do not have any of my own! Sad, but true.
In the past 4 months, my food prep routine has gotten a major shaking. I used to know exactly what I wanted to have on hand and where to get it for the best deal. I had a system in place for over 20 years! Now I feel lost in the store, not knowing which product to buy or whether I can get it much cheaper elsewhere.
So my goal is to re-vamp my inventory list and try to get a handle once again on my grocery lists and meal prep plan.
(But I am having fun–I do love all this kitchen chemistry!)
Hi Kelly,
I really enjoy the monthly goals as they are inspiring to me. Even though I work outside of the home half-time, (and full-time at home!), I realize “I can do it” when I see your posts.
Don’t feel pressured, though — we all know you are busy with your class and your family.
I like seeing everyone’s goals! I always “forget” this is even coming lol…is it sad that a month is a long time? Sort of? ha.
Right now I’m trying to get ahead of my kombucha brewing. We’re drinking each about 2 bottles (64 oz. total!) per day. So that’s making it hard for me to keep up on, even brewing 5 gallons at a time. I tend to let it go about 12 days in the initial ferment and then an additional 2, so we always have a couple days at the end when we don’t have any. Unless we skip one sometime. Plus they’re better after they’ve had an additional week or so to age in the fridge! So I just started TEN gallons (yes seriously) in hopes of getting ahead of myself and always having “old” bottles available.
I’m also working on my winter “health kit.” I’m making peach pit brandy (half done), elderberry syrup (on my list today), and still researching other things. My goal is to have enough natural medicine in this house to give any illness we might get this winter (pray for none!) the old one-two punch and knock it out right away! The kids are loving the elderberry-honey jelly I have them eating in lieu of the elderberry syrup, for now, so it’ll be no problem to get them to take that when the time comes.
That’s it for now I think!
Even though I have visited your site often over the past year, I have never participated in kitchen goals. I usually have so many other work related goals and such that my kitchen goals are routine; do my best to menu plan and provide nourishing snacks and meals for my family. This month I do happen to have two different kitchen goals;
1. As of yesterday I started the GAPS intro, yikes! So I am going my best to get through it without driving myself or my family crazy
2. I am participating in Nourished Kitchen’s latest challenge so I am tightening up our budget and trying to stick to about $410 a month for our family of 3+ (we are expecting one, so he/she doesn’t require much extra food just yet). This came at a great time because we have all kinds of strange annual expenses that hit in October (our 1/2 a cow, flood insurance, vehicle taxes and other crazy things).
I do like to read other people’s kitchen goals but it would also be great to hear how last months goals went!
I like the monthly goals, but I’m fairly new . . .
My goal for October is to quit buying processed food. I’ve been gradually doing that over the summer, and my pantry is looking the better for it. So, this month I want to stop completely!
My two main areas of focus lately have been dairy and meat. I’ve started purchasing my milk from a local dairy through my food co-op. It’s from organically-raised, grass-fed jersey cows, and it’s unhomogenized and NOT UHT! I’ve also tried some jersey raw milk for the first time and plan on starting to work it into our diet more. It’s already tasting kinda funky after just a few days so I’ve got to troubleshoot to figure out why.
I’ve also purchased some pastured chicken, beef and pork. The challenge has been figuring out how to spread it out so we can actually afford it.
I hope you keep this feature, I certainly need it.
I am still way behind where I want to be feeding my family, especially with their resistance.
My goals for last month were:
1) no more store bought cookies and bars: still bought, but way less
2) no more nitrate meats: husband still bought, but way less
3) try to make sourdough cake: didn’t
this month I am setting a smaller goal: kids lunches in glass, rather than plastic, containers.
Kelly: your food conversion seems complete, so you don’t need such goals, for some of us it is still a great uphill challenge. thanks for providing the inspiration and hosting site.
Kelly, while you have been busy working on your Rookies class, there are those of us that might consider ourselves “sophomores,” and still working on establishing meaningful and lasting routines. As such, I sincerely do appreciate this monthly reminder to pick one or two things to work on–and honestly, it has been helping me to get a routine. I usually pick ONE thing that either you or your readers post–two or three is just not realistic for me! Anyway, I have almost made the switch to 100% soaked/sprouted/sourdough bread in my house–and honestly, because of the routines involved in that, it’s been a 2-3 month process. Still on top of previous months’ goals of 100% soaked/soured/sprouted cereal grains including my oatmeal, brown rice, and also crispy nuts. Right now, it’s a challenge to take on anything new because of the harvest coming in, so my goal for this month is to keep those tomatoes going into the dehydrator (Canning? Are you KIDDING ME!?!?) since my last batch of lacto-fermented salsa ended up molding which was really discouraging after all the work to make it. Anyway, Goal for October: waste no produce from the garden, while keeping on track with the other “successes” I’ve made to date!
Hope you keep the post, but also understand if you take a break until your Rookie class is finished!
Most of my real food goals for this month aren’t actually for cooking. For one, I want to make non-toxic cleaners, so I need 3 empty bottles (one for hydrogen peroxide, one for vinegar, and one for water/vinegar/alcohol for cleaning glass). For two, I want to clean, sort, and inventory my freezers. For three, I want to make apple scrap vinegar (or maybe banana vinegar if I can get some good organic bananas and clean the skins off really well). And for four, I want to make some incredible mac & cheese from scratch so that the boxed stuff is no longer tempting.
Also, I wanted to tell you that my husband finally, finally tried my raw milk! I was visiting relatives and when I came home he gave me a big hug and said “Baby, I just drank some bad milk and it’s gonna kill me. In fact, it did kill me and I’m already dead.” I opened up the fridge and there my previously unopened bottle of raw milk was missing several inches from the top. I asked if he didn’t like it and he said “No, it was gross. It was really thick.” I thought that was odd because my milk comes from Dutch Belted, and it doesn’t have much of a cream line. So I looked again and… it was all cream that was missing. *lol* Since he tried it on his own, he didn’t know that it has to be shaken up, and even if he did, the bottles are filled so full that they don’t shake well when they’re unopened.
I don’t know if he’ll ever try it again, but at least now I feel as though I can cook with it, since he’s actually had some now.
I did just find a listing on Real Milk for a Jersey farm just up from where I get my Dutch Belted, so I want to investigate. I love my Dutch Belted and the farmer that sells it to me, but it would be nice to be able to use the cream for something other than drinking and the Dutch Belted just don’t have enough cream for that.
I am new to your site and taking steps toward eating real food to help with my PCOS symptoms. I am not bored with any of your posts.
Goals are nice and all, but really hearing everyone else talk about kitchen goals only makes me feel guilty about the many things I haven’t had the time or energy to try. I have more fun reading about accomplishments, tricks, techniques, recipes, etc. But everything you send is awesome – maybe the answer is just taking some time off from it and coming back when you’re not so busy with the class.
Rookies Unite! Keep those goals and ideas coming.
Do you think you have some new readers from the class? Perhaps all of us newbies would continue to benefit from goals?
We give you a HUGE dose of grace for your lack of food goals, as you are teaching the rest of us right now.
My food goal this month: find grass-fed beef bones and make real stock.
I still have yet to get into lactofermentation, as I’ve been working on going gluten free! But I have some lovely full fat yogurt from Jersey cows, so I ought to give it a try! Maybe beets first? Any hints?
Hi Kelly,
Looking through the comments, I’m thinking that even if you post “no goals this month”
it gives a forum for others to share goals. Goals of my own depress me, lol, I’m a flylady dropout! But I LOVE hearing others’ goals and it inspires and motivates me.
My current goals (those things on my mental list that I keep losing) are to call a repairman for the oven and call the local egg farm and ask if the soy put in their feed by local farmers are GE or not. I throw some of those in with our pastured eggs… I know that’s not a great choice and I’ve been back and forth on the egg thing but at this moment I figure that at least I’m supporting the locals that provide the Kroger and Wal-Mart eggs (sigh) and can’t afford JUST the good eggs. This morning we’re trying some frozen eggs that I bought from a friend (I froze them to see how we like it so I can save eggs for the winter). Anyway, although soy is bad I want to put a bug in their ear about the public NOT wanting GMO soy (nor GMO corn) and will through in that we’d prefer to not have soy at all in our eggs.
Actually, I DO write down to-dos in a spiral
. Off to do that now!
I loooove all the feedback everyone!! OK, well, I’m perfectly happy to keep going with this since so many seem to like it! As I said, I was probably feeling that way only because my own goals have been so non-existent (beyond survival). OH, and by the way, Arlene, I am soooooooo far from “complete” with my food conversion!!!! I still have tons to work on.
Kelly
Kelly,
It has been a couple of months since I’ve left a comment . . .
Just like you I feel as if I have been in survival mode for the last 2 1/2 months. Many changes have occured in our house. My goal for Oct. is
to be back in the kitchen.
1. re inventory my freezer –
2. plan meals from my freezer inventory
3. Spend one afternoon or two in the kitchen and make ahead meals.
I obviously need this post to challenge myself. I’m making whey, right as we speak, and I’ve blogged about it!