1. Eat fast food only once a month.
Fast food is a staple of the American Diet. It’s been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. As a child, ‘eating out’ was going to McDonalds. As I’ve grown older, it's become less an occasion and more a necessity of a faster paced life. In 2018, I hope to reduce the amount of time and money spent at these establishments. It does help that my favorite fast food location, Jimmy Johns, does not have a location close to where I live in Delaware. The temptation will be greatly reduced. 2. Cut back on soda. I try to do this every year with only moderate success. Rather than try to go cold turkey, I’ve decided to limit my intake rather than get rid of it entirely. This makes it a much more manageable goal. I don’t want to drink more than 1 can a day. 3. Try to eat 1 vegetarian meal a week. I don’t get a lot of vegetables in my diet. Carbs, carbs, carbs. I need to change that. Starting with one vegetarian meal a week, I intend to cut out some of the carbs in my diet and introduce techniques and ingredients I have never tried before. 4. Go out less overall. This comes down to money spent. My husband and I used to go out at least once a week, and each time the bill would come up to thirty to fifty dollars. We have to stop that! It’s time I make the food I want in my own kitchen a little more often. 5. Explore the limits of seafood We just moved to the East Coast. Chesapeake Bay on one side of the peninsula, the Atlantic Ocean on the other. If I didn’t try to eat more seafood during our tenure in Delaware, I would be an idiot. I had fried oysters for the first time when we moved here, and they were delicious. Surely everything is good? 6. Expand the pantry. As much as it’s time to explore seafood, it’s time to explore some pantry staples I’ve lacked all my life. Vinegars! Spices! Funny pastas! What have I been missing out on by not using that red wine vinegar everyone uses in everything? 7. Get some new toys! To say my kitchen is poorly stocked is a falsehood, but there are some gadgets I am looking at purchasing in the new year. Every item expands what I am able to do in my home kitchen, and it feeds into my other goals of spending more time in my own kitchen, not at a restaurant table. An immersion blender is at the top of the list. I want to try to make more soups to limit the amount of money I spend on going out, and several soup recipes call for an immersion blender to bring it all together. Do you have any food related New Year’s Resolutions?
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200 One Pot Meals has been on the shelf for a very long time. I bought it in 2013 shortly after I finished college during a trip back. I did not actually open it and try its recipes until almost a year ago. The recipes that I tried rarely came back into rotation, but while thumbing through it, I realized that I missed several that my husband and I might be interested in trying. So, we begin again and give the book another chance.
We’ll be trying a Noodle Soup with Chicken on week one. If you have this book, you can find it on page 32. The picture reminds me of a ramen dish. With the cold in Delaware lately, I thought we might be well served by any kind of soup. For this same reason, we will try a Clam and Potato chowder during week two this month. We have much easier access to fresh clams where we live now. I am excited to put the seafood to good use. We’ll deviate from the soup theme in weeks three and four in a Lamb with Artichoke and Gremolata dish for week three and a Pasta with creamy Vegetable broth for week four. I have never had lamb in my life, much less cooked it, and if I can trick my husband (and myself) into eating more vegetables through a pasta dish, I’m more than willing to try it. 2018 is a new year, and it's time to try new things. I will discuss my experience with each recipe every Saturday of the month, beginning with the noodle soup as mentioned earlier. 200 One Pot Meals is available on Amazon for $5.00 USD. |
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