12monthsofcooking.com

2009 was a hectic year cooking-wise ( I guess in other regards as well). With so much to do (work, family, errands, new-baby) I felt like I was always a little behind “blog-wise” and it was a struggle to keep up. There were definitely some highlights – six greats   – the orange cake; the slow cooked ribs; the sweet potato gnoochi; the herb-roasted chicken; the fetuccine carbonarra; and the chocolate cream pie. There were also six good recipes, and somehow I managed to meet my goal of 12 recipes for the year, with six magazine covers.

So what to do this year ? I first deliberated whether I even want to do this anymore… is it worth it ? I definitely enjoy cooking – and the blog is a little bit of effort but in reality not an amazing drain on time (and more fun than stamp-collecting). So I’m in for another year.

Perhaps instead of scaling back I should go “big” in some way ? Commit to doing every magazine cover, add an additional magazine, do every recipe in a book etc. etc. It’s a nice day-dream – but not really practical.

On some reflection I realized that I cook way more than I even blog about it. So perhaps I need to just blog more – even when it’s not a cover recipe ? Hmm… One other insight into cooking – sometimes the best recipes are the simplest and easiest. Last year I discovered a mustard and rosemary beef tenderloin roast recipe. It is absolutely simple to make, very delicious and everyone raves about it. On the other hand – some of the recipes last year were extremely tedious – the potato gnoochi, and the meatballs. I think I want to focus on the simple and the delicious.

So this year I am going to focus on simple and delicious. I am going to embark on a quest – by finding five ‘great’ new recipes – a chicken, a steak, a pork, a fish and a ‘family favorite’. ( I think I already have one or two greats – which I’ll describe sometime).

But first what do I even mean by a great recipe ? First of all it has to be delicious. Not just good, not just ‘yummy’ but out and out delicious. Something that everyone eating it *raves* about. Something that family and friends will ask you to make again and again.

The next part of ‘great’ also means it’s simple and easily described. This should mean you can cook it without looking at a recipe, it’s simple and straighforward enough to remember. There are many deserts I can make that are very delicious and not that hard to make. However I still have to look them up – so they are failing the “simple test” and just “almost great”.
 
Great recipes are also “forgiving”, meaning that you can mess it up a little bit and it still come out ahead.

So looking forward to 2010 – and my quest !