Happy New Year, TLT’ers! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season.
With this shiny new year stretched out before us, I thought I’d share a few of my 2016 resolutions relating to food, blogging and overall health. I have a mixed track record on keeping New Year’s resolutions but maybe by posting them here, I’ll feel more accountable!
In no particular order, here they are:
Do you ever feel like your go-to rotation of family dinner recipes is getting smaller and smaller, just because you’ve forgotten many well-liked dishes that you used to make all the time? Yeah, me, too! 🙂 For many years I’ve used Paprika, which is an excellent recipe manager you can access from your computer, phone and tablet. But my goal in the coming weeks is to get more of my favorite recipes – the ones sitting in cookbooks or that I know by heart but have never bothered to write down – into my Paprika database so I can get more dinner inspiration at a glance. And I’m also taking the advice I offer TLT readers, which is going to my own Resources page and revisiting some of my favorite sources for weeknight dinner recipes, including Martha Stewart’s “Dinner Tonight”, Dinner: a Love Story, The Six O’Clock Scramble, 100 Days of Real Food and Sally Kuzemchak’s (Real Mom Nutrition) excellent cookbook, Cooking Light’s Dinnertime Survival Guide: Feed Your Family, Save Your Sanity.
OK, shameful confession time. We have many wonderful farmer’s markets here in Houston – including one that’s located two blocks from my house – and I never shop at them! I really do want to support our local farmers and I know the all benefits of eating locally-raised produce, yet out of sheer laziness I’ve continued to buy my (organic but only sometimes local) produce as part of my regular grocery run. So this year I’m going to try to visit my neighborhood farmer’s market more regularly and build my dinner menus around whatever’s there, instead of setting my weekly menu first and then going in search of ingredients that may have been grown half way around the world. (And you don’t have to say it. I know this is precisely what I should have been doing all along!)
You guys, I feel so bad about having to make this promise – yet again! But sometimes the considerable time and mental energy it takes to write blog posts – particularly the more in-depth ones, which typically generate the most comments – leaves me feeling just plain done with the topic. But if you take the time to write a comment on this blog, you absolutely deserve a response from me – and not two weeks later, either. Please hold me to this one, people!
It seems like every day there’s another article about the considerable mental and physical health benefits of meditation, but I find it very challenging to mentally unplug. This year, I decided to make stress relief easier by purchasing a highly-rated guided meditation app for my iPhone. Having a soothing voice in my ear has been quite helpful in keeping my thoughts from wandering, but I also like that you can create your own silent meditation sessions with a customized time limit, along with an optional ringing bell tone that you can set at various intervals. Everything I’ve read says that short sessions of regular daily meditation are far more beneficial than irregular, longer sessions, so I’m starting out with the most modest of goals: just six minutes a day!
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Do you have any resolutions for 2016? Feel free to share in a comment below. (And yes, I WILL respond! 🙂 )
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Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2016 Bettina Elias Siegel
Katherine Weber says
Hi Bettina, happy new year! Great goals! My brother and sister in law Christian and Lisa Seger are the owners/cheesemakers at Blue Heron Farm goat dairy in Waller, TX. Maybe you’re following them on facebook already? They have a big following. They sell their cheese at the Tues Rice U market and the Sat Urban Harvest market at Richmond/Eastside. If you see them (Lisa is usually the one at the booth), tell them I said hi!
I have been cooking/meal planning by “ingredients first” for a few years now, and I really love it. It started from a combination of (1) summer gardening and having to figure out what do do with my harvest, (2) going to more farmers markets and buying what was there, and (3) being too lazy to pick and plan menus ahead of time, so just going to the grocery and getting some vegs and meats and figuring it out when I got home. With the internet/search, it’s really easy to find recipes by ingredient. I heavily use the NYT Cooking site, where you can search by ingredient. Also love DALS site, can search by ingredient. Also the huge databases of course – Epicurious etc. And cookbook indices (indexes?) obviously! I like the flexibility and spontaneity of cooking from what’s on hand, rather than the dreaded task of picking recipes out of thin air every Sunday, and then having to shop for specfics. Staring at ingredients is more inspiring and motivating for me than looking through cookbooks out of context.
Meditation is also on my list. I like your modest starting ambition of 6 mins. I am a fan of Sharon Salzberg’s work and teaching. Though I admit to reading and listening to her podcasts more than I *actually practice* myself. Resolutions …
Keep up the good work, your writing continues to be inspiring and informative!
Katherine
Bettina Elias Siegel says
Katherine: So nice to hear from you – and how did I not previously know your connection to the wonderful Blue Heron Farm people??? I know Lisa a little bit and love their cheese – and their goat pictures! As for “ingredients first,” these are all great tips and resources! I did used to belong to a CSA for a few years, which was the only time I really had to think this way (though I’ll admit, week 3 of “What do I do with mustard greens?” sometimes got a little challenging – LOL.) And yes, I’m hoping by keeping my meditation goal really, really modest for a while, I can build the habit first and then lengthen the sessions. I’ll look into Sharon Salzberg, too. Thanks so much for coming by and wishing you all the best for the New Year! – Bettina
bw1 says
“Reply to every reader comment”
Even mine? Don’t lead me down the garden path…
bw1 says
and by the way, Happy New Year!
Bettina Elias Siegel says
I may not always choose to engage in debate, but I will reply, bw1! And Happy New Year to you, too. 🙂