Cooking adventures: Goals for 2013

After a moderate amount of thought about the word resolution, I’ve decided that I prefer the term goal to talk about what I want to accomplish here. I think that’s more appropriate for me because it’s action oriented and not necessarily dependent on a new year beginning. I’ll be posting a short series on what my new goals are and how I’m going to implement them. This part is about what I’m going to do for cooking.

After a moderate amount of thought about the word resolution, I’ve decided that I prefer the term goal to talk about what I want to accomplish here. I think that’s more appropriate for me because it’s action oriented and not necessarily dependent on a new year beginning. I’ll be posting a short series on what my new goals are and how I’m going to implement them. This part is about what I’m going to do for cooking.

Be more adventurous in cooking

Picture of my KitchenAid Mixer gift
My awesome gift from Laura

So for Christmas I got a KitchenAid stand mixer from Laura and I’m having a great time wanting to cook up some new things. Given this new addition to my kitchen arsenal, I want to learn to make a lot more stuff. I’ve got a few recipes in my regular repertoire but I want to expand those to include more things outside of my comfort zone. I’ve already been inspired to try out cooking some fresh southern style biscuits which turned out really well and tasted delicious with bacon and eggs. I also made some awesome pecan pie cupcakes. Croissants, pasta, sourdough baguettes, etc. I’ve already tackled some delicious pretzel bites that were for the New Years Eve party that I went to. I also made some pizza dough that wasn’t as successful but I’ll get better. I’ve also been looking up some new awesome recipes around the web and been pinning them on my pinterest account. I’m looking forward to attempting the baguettes and sourdough bread.

Other things I’d like to attempt are new meat techniques like aging my own steaks and buying whole tenderloins to cut into steaks. I also want to attempt some pouch cooking and cooking pocket pies. More braised meat, I’ve already made some pork shoulder a few times so now I want to try some barbacoa recipes. I’d like to make my own tortillas for taco nights etc. Trying new sauces. I’m looking forward to some great new cooking and recipes.

What about you? Are you trying out different cooking techniques or recipes? How are you deciding what to make?