Mission 2011 - January Report

And now for a momentary break from my usual blogging... the next post we will be back to Christmas.

I don't necessarily believe in New Year's resolutions.  Its not that I have something against them, just that I want to always be working toward doing things better... Setting goals just once a year doesn't seem right for me.  I also don't believe in setting a lot of goals, or unrealistic goals, which I will abandon before the year is half over.

However, this year I did set one resolution for 2011.  Somehow in the past two years, my recipe repertoire has diminished until it is TINY!  I used to have a lot of food that I liked making.  Some of it had to be abandoned as I moved to low sodium, but somehow I have forgotten most of what I enjoyed making.  Yeah, pregnancy and a baby contributed.  But my mission in 2011 is to reverse this... I want to cook again, I want to enjoy cooking, and I want to have more than 10 recipes that come to mind when it's time to plan meals for a week.

How will I do this?  By trying at least two new recipes every month.  Qualification - the recipes must be nutritious (meet Andy and my guidelines for lower saturated fat and sodium).  If I'm expanding my recipe collection, I'd like it to be with things that I don't have to feel guilty about eating!

Along with this, I have made a resolution to plan out meals for a week at a time.  This will include three-four newly cooked meals a week.  Only one night will be planned for eating out each week.  (We need to improve on that too!)  The other nights can be filled with leftovers or other filler meals, such as sandwiches and breakfast food.

How am I going to keep myself honest?  By posting our results on the blog once a month.  Yes, it's February... so I'm ready to write about January now!

January was off to a slow start as we were out of town for the first week and had a birthday (mine) to celebrate.  The last three weeks of the month proved successful on our plan.  I made weekly menus and even managed to consolidate our grocery trips to only once per week through careful planning.  Running into the grocery store with a one year old and a five year old just isn't my idea of fun.  I try to do it as little as possible!

In January we tried three new recipes:
Meatloaf (a vegetable stuffed meatloaf I got out of Family Circle)
Macaroni and Cheese
Beef Stroganoff

The Meatloaf
The meatloaf I made had an entire squash and two carrots in it.  It was fine... but watery from all the veggies.  It took a really long time to prep cook.  The prep cooking was not worth the meal that we ate.  It was acceptable, but I will not likely make it again.  If I do I will cut down on the carrots and omit the suggested italian seasoning.  It just wasn't right.  We ended up feeding about 1/4 of this meatloaf to the dog.  Usually we devour the meatloaves I make as sandwiches the next day.  The fact that we didn't want to is telling.

Macaroni and Cheese
I made this because Ephram has completely rejected all of the store bought mac and cheeses I've tried to feed him.  I really want him to like mac and cheese, and I am looking for more meals where he can eat exactly what we're eating.  Also, I was excited to find a way to cut back the sodium enough so that I could enjoy some mac and cheese too.  The recipe was from Better Homes and Garden's New Cookbook.  It was pretty good the first time.  I modified it by only using 2oz of American Cheese instead of the 6oz the recipe called for.  I subbed the other 4oz with Mild Cheddar Cheese for a lot less sodium.  It was good and it was gone within a day.  (And yes, Ephram loved it.)  We made it again two days later.  This time we omitted the onions and added panko bread crumbs on top.  (I use panko because there is a lot less sodium in them.)  We will be making this again, a lot.  Going forward I will use sharp cheddar instead of mild.  And broccoli makes an excellent side dish because it is so good with the cheese sauce!

Beef Stroganoff
This was also from Family Circle.  It was a slow cooker recipe that used wine.  This was actually the first time I'd ever cooked with wine, and it was quite funny watching me try to figure out how to open the bottle.  (I used regular white wine instead of cooking wine to lower the sodium.)  It was worth the humiliation... and the time to finely chop the onions and slice the mushrooms.  Actually, as far as stroganoff's go - this thing was easy.  The only modifications I made were to sub no sodium added tomato paste and to cut the soy sauce in half.  (It was already the lower sodium soy sauce.)  This was the best stroganoff I have ever had.  It was delicious.  We ate every last bit of it and fought over the last serving.  (Andy and I ended up splitting it for lunch and then eating something small afterward.)  Next time I make it I will only use one onion and I will put in more mushrooms.  Other than that I won't change a thing!  I liked this so much that I shared it on Facebook, and four people have made it and likewise raved about it.

Conclusion: Month 1 was a success.  And I love my kitchen again.  I also love that I did not make the same meal twice during the entire month.  That is some amazing progress for a family that used to have breakfast for dinner, chicken, tacos or pasta every week.  (Yep, that's about all that I used to make!)

Can't wait to see what February will bring!