I've got a thing with cookbooks. I LOVE THEM! I think
I would really love to take some culinary classes. I recently watched Julie & Julia and I really liked it. I love the idea of cooking my
way through and entire cookbook.
Yesterday, on our fun day in town, I got 2 new cookbooks. A Mediterranean (mmmmmm, so good) cookbook and a vegetarian cook book. Trent and I are both pretty excited about trying out some recipes in them. I'm especially excited about making my own pita bread! When we lived in Twin Falls I would check out cookbooks from the library, which was awesome. I would check out around 9 at a time and maybe cook 1 recipe out of 3 of them, which was not so awesome. Where we live now does not make library book checking out super easy, but we'll probably do
it, once Ila is reading.
I try to make 1 new meal every week. I do this for several reasons.
1. I get discouraged about making the same things over and over again, and then I begin to dislike spending time in the kitchen and that usually leads to a rough couple of days (or a week) where I end doing the bare minimum to fill our bellies, and those are not very healthy meals I make in a hurry, and then I feel even worse about the situation.
2. Cooking the same meals is BORING. If you are tired of a meal, it's likely that someone else at the table is too.
3. I love a good kitchen challenge!
4. We both love "international" food, and there is so much we still want to try & explore.
5. I like to shop for foods I don't normally buy. The Asian food market is my friend, as well as co-op type places.
There is something to be said about repeat meals though. That is why I usually make just the 1 (sometimes 2, but the second one is almost always a crockpot meal, and I don't feel like that REALLY counts) new meal.
The Challenge:
So, I thought it would be fun to challenge you all to make something new! Try a different cuisine (if you make American, Italian or Mexican usually, try a Thai recipe, Basque or Indian...etc.) then usual.
And, don't make it a crockpot recipe. Get your hands and kitchen dirty!!!
I would really LOVE to hear what you made and how it went, so please leave a comme
nt or send me an email or facebook or text, or give me a call and tell me how the challenge went!
A note to my challenge takers:
I would hate for you to not take me up on the challenge because you don't know where to get a new recipe, so try one of these websites if you are having a hard time:
WOW! I made a real winner the other day. I'll have to see if I can remember what all I put in because it was an "out of my head" recipe! Marma
ReplyDeleteHere it is:
ReplyDeleteFirst I put a pot of rice on to steam while I fixed the rest of this.
I started out with the "trinity" you taught me:
1 onion (chopped), 3 stalks celery (chopped), 1 red pepper (chopped) sauteed in a little water until tender. Then I added 1 cup shredded red cabbage, 1 Tbsp. grated ginger root, 2 cloves minced garlic, 1 Tbsp. of balsamic vinegar, 2 Tbsp. soy sauce. Continued steaming all together in same pot while I chopped 1/2 head of cauliflower, about the same amount of broccoli and 2 small zucchini's. I put those in the pot with the other steaming vegetables and steamed for about 5 min. then added a handful of spinach, 15 grapes tomatoes (halved) juice of a full lime and 1 Tbsp. honey. I steamed it for another 5 min. and served over a rice bed. It was yummy!!!
bonnie says: a recent blog that i found has a really yummy pinto bean and sweet potato stew. i tried it last week and it was something that would not have normally appealed to me. but it was really good! i mean, really good. it's now one of my favorites and i will be making it for my birthday, it's that good. the website is peasandthankyou.com. it's a really cute family/cooking blog and it's totally vegan. i may take this challenge! i'll let you know!
ReplyDeleteI am excited to try a new recipe and will do one tomorrow and let you know how it goes. Sherry Hill
ReplyDeleteI will try it next week. Daddio is going to be gone most of this week and has already shopped for me. God forbid I have to go to the grocery store. lol mommasita
ReplyDeleteOh this is exciting! I can't wait to hear how it goes everyone!
ReplyDeleteBonnie- Um, that sounds awesome. I checked out that website when you posted it and saw a few I was itching to try. But I may have to go for your new favorite first!
Marma, I think it sounds WONDERFUL! BUT, I still want you to take my challenge and make something completely different. There are lots of vegetarian, non-fat and vegan dishes out there! You are getting to be a pro at stir fry's! :)
i love making new dishes. that's another reason why i've been blogging my menus. it's my way of keeping the recipes to them too! the more recipes i try, the more i realize we really love chicken and mexican. i think that's interesting because i never thought i did growing up.
ReplyDeletegood challenge. maybe i'll let you know which new one was my favorite for the week!
my blog will have the links to these new recipes we tried:
ReplyDeletethe santa fe salad was really good! i think it's the only time i felt really secure in serving our family JUST a salad!!!
the homemade baked potato soup was SO delicious! it was thick and creamy and really really really good. we only had one bowl of leftover.
the beef brisket recipe from "tenille" was scrumptious! but really expensive!
and then i blogged about how i experimented a twist on our spaghetti recipe. that was good!
yeah. so, it's good to try new recipes. this menu i just made didn't have any new recipes on it. and i think it's lame. but i'm out of energy in looking right now.
I am going to do this!!! I found some new recipes on a freezer meal blog and I really want to make some freezer meals. I'm so excited. But it will have to be next week since I am going on a Woman's Retreat this weekend ;D
ReplyDeletebonnie says: i tried a new recipe. now, to be 100% honest, i knew i would like it mainly because i like the spice combo. the new thing i really tried was kale. i have never cooked it before and i have also never eaten it. it was simply amazing! and i'm glad that i tried it. i will challenge myself further, to try something that's closer to 100% of a new recipe. i'll keep you posted. thanks for the encouragement!! lyl
ReplyDeleteAWesome! Glad to hear things are going so well. WE've been enjoying Kale as well around here. There is 1/2 a field of it left (they already harvested all they were going to) so we can eat as much or little as we want of it! I'll have to send you the kale and potato soup recipe we used. It was AWESOME!
ReplyDeletei've got another recipe on the list for this week. it's a vegetable stew that calls for molasses and dill...you've got me on a roll! i'll probably throw some kale in there because i have some left over. let's recipe share! that sounds awesome!!
ReplyDelete