New Year’s cooking goals

 granola bars

It’s the second day in January, and some New Year’s resolutions have already been broken. But if you are the resolution-making type, you are likely still determined to follow through on yours. Many people’s resolutions involve food; a lot of them are of the eating better variety, whether for improved health, weight loss, or just as a counterbalance to the season of holiday excess.

Healthy eating isn’t the only food-related New Year’s resolution, however. Over at Epicurious, David Tamarkin has set a goal of making every meal at home for the month of January. Says Tamarkin, “I will cook almost everything I eat: every breakfast, every lunch, every dinner. I will not go to restaurants. I will not order delivery. I will not eat anything that has been pre-prepared, or even partially pre-prepared.” He is doing this primarily because he says cooking makes him happy, although he has a few secondary reasons. He’ll be checking in weekly at Epicurious, you can also follow along with him on his Twitter and Instagram accounts (using the hashtag #Cook90).

New Year’s resolutions that I have made over the years include trying one new recipe per week, making at least one recipe out of every cookbook that I own, and doing more preserving from my garden. (I won’t embarass myself by describing how well I accomplished any of these goals.) This year my resolution is akin to David Tamarkin’s: I want to make more of my own breakfasts, as I too frequently reach for a Belvita biscuit or packaged granola bar. What is your New Year’s food resolution?

Photo of How to make homemade granola bars – pecan cranberry bars from The Kitchn

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3 Comments

  • eliza  on  January 2, 2016

    Not really resolutions per se, more just things I want to do in the cooking/eating realm… I want to try some simple fermenting of various veggies and fruits including a fermented salsa I saw recently and I'd like to do some more picallili after the success I had this year with it. I love veggie gardening, and I'm always looking for ways to preserve the harvest so more of that. Also, I recently started using the bookmarks on this site to remember recipes to try so I'm going to work through those. Stir frying is another thing I'd like to do better…I bought grace young's course on Craftsy and can't wait to get started.

  • nicki.williams  on  January 5, 2016

    My new years resolution is to become better at cooking intuitively rather than always needing to use a cookbook. I LOVE my cookbooks but it would be good not to need them ALL the time. As part of this I would like to learn a few basic recipes that I can cook from memory and improve some of my skills such as filleting a fish. I have set out my food goals in my blog called "For the Love of Cookbooks" and I'm very much looking forward to achieving them! https://fortheloveofcookbooks.wordpress.com/2016/01/04/cooking-goals-for-2016/

  • KarinaFrancis  on  January 5, 2016

    I set myself yearly cooking challenges, last year it was seasonal cooking, the year before was the 75 new recipe challenge which was designed to break me out of the same fallback dishes. The oddest one was my year of cooking the "lesser loved" parts of an animal, my friend dubbed it the balls n all year (note I didn't actually go that far)

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