I love hearing how your last month’s goals went and what you have planned in the kitchen for this month, be sure to share in the comments. (I actually have a goal this month, too!)
Last month around here…
I don’t have a clue what my goals even were last month beyond survival, sometimes that's all we can do, right? But survive I did, and now that my Real Food for Rookies class is completely up, I can make some kitchen goals again…
My goals:
I’m keeping it simple because I’ll be playing catch up for a little while, but my goal this month (besides shopping, wrapping, and enjoying the Advent & Christmas season!) is to make Christmas cookies with the kids. That’s it. And we’ll only use homemade white frosting, because I just can’t bring myself to use the fake chemical toxic food colorings ever again. (Have you seen this post? The Ugly Side of Food Dyes.)
OH and I do want to make fermented carrots again, because they’re soooo good and simple, too, especially when you have some frozen shredded carrots still in the freezer. 🙂
You’re up, what’s coming up in your kitchen this December?
My goal for this month is to make mostly healthy holiday treats. My hubby does want me to make some less healthy cookie plates for friends who wouldn’t appreciate real food :), but for our family, I’m going to try to stick to natural sweeteners, sprouted flour and other real food ingredients.
Oh, and I’ve already accomplished my other goal…to make creme fresh. I had made it before and it turned out good, but this time it was the best ever! I eat it with scrambled eggs for breakfast.
Dani,
I am curious about the sourdough starter for making white sauce. How do you do that?
I’m almost embarrassed to say this, my goal this month really is to finally get the rest of the “not real food” out of my kitchen. Because hubby has been unemployed for over a year now, we are–unfortunately–eating it ourselves (can’t, with our budget right now, bring ourselves to donate a month’s worth of food…), but the advantage is that we will be getting the worst of it out all at once; yes, we’ll be making fudge one more time, and that will be our contributions to the various Christmas parties we’ll be attending this year. We’re actually in pretty good shape, because there’s really not THAT much, and all our meats are from sustainable farming practices, so we really are just about where we were a year ago when we first started on this journey (and when I deviated to full-on real food rather than finish what we had, in order to stave off a medical crisis). Because of what I have learned in the past year, I am able to prepare things healthier once I’m out of something I would have used–i.e., I used some sourdough starter since I didn’t have any sprouted or soaked flour handy to make a white sauce last night for a tuna noodle casserole. I am down to one box of canned/packaged soups and canned goods, and one box of pasta.
Ah, I love that you remind us to have goals! I LOVE THESE POSTS!
I’m so glad it’s helpful to you! Don’t be embarrassed, I still find things way in the back of my pantry once in a while, too! 🙂
Kelly
Great goals from everyone!
My goal is to start blogging about my meal planning, which I started doing this week 🙂
Here:
http://suburbanhomemade.blogspot.com/2010/12/from-my-kitchen-weekly-meal-planning.html
We have also just put a batch of sparkling elderflower on to brew, which was an unintentional but happily coincidental goal that I have achieved this week!
My Kitchen goals for this month are to make Gingerbread cookies with my kids. They are teenagers but still enjoy decorating the little guys! I am using things like beet, carrot and raspberry juice to color the homemade cream cheese icing that is sweetened with honey. For details:
http://www.freshhealthycooking.com/gingerbread.html
I actually got one goal done – I organized my spices!
I’m going to make fermented cranberry relish and then start recipe testing for my healthy desserts book, which is supposed to come in April. 🙂 I also want to cook as many healthy comfort foods as possible, and photograph the ones I need for my Healthy Pregnancy Super Foods book (coming in Jan.). Yeah, my goals are centered around my books now! lol.
My goals are to clean out my pantry, wash everything down, and replace not-so-great foods with the healthier ones we are eating now. Begin limiting treats to homemade items, 1) to encourage home cooking skills for DD, 2) to decrease transfats/artificial sweets/preservatives in our diet.
I plan to make fermented sourkrout as part of the gifts we are giving to family and friends this year. I have decided that everyone needs to eat a fermented food so I will have to get busy getting all that together. Dear son is coming home from college for winter break and I need to have food he will eat that I approve of. I found a recipe for sourdough stollen that I want to try. As I mentioned before I am trying to stick to the diet that will raise my body temp, which means no sugar of any kind. Did I pick the right month to start this? Haha. I guess that’s it. I think that’s enough.
Working on getting stuff OUT of the pantry to make room for more real food. I fermeted carrots using salt – if we was them off (they were not edible) they don’t lose any of the properties I desire from the ferementing right? One batch seemed fine – the other WAY too salty (and I used the same sea salt)
I think You can rinse but I’m not sure about this one, hopefully someone else will jump in.
Cherry jam and mozzarella cheese. Yum.
This has come at the perfect time again for planning! I love your goal this month to keep it simple. I’ve still got a lot I want to get done, hopefully this month is not as hectic as last! ha. I still haven’t fermented carrots before, I need to try that, too.
http://kitchenrecovery.blogspot.com/2010/12/kitchen-tasks-for-month-of-december.html