Since I got married in 2010, I have kept track of every dinner I have every made. This is the first time I have looked back on a year of cooking and reflected upon the results.
Thus, my reflections.
1) January and February 2020: During these two months, I was practicing ( and had been practicing for five previous months) the FasterWay diet, and trying to incorporate the program's meals (recipes) into my family's life, because I was paying for the program's recipes. As a result, I lost 15 pounds and wanted to maintain that loss. Yet, the FasterWay recipes were not good. Nine years of near daily cooking had made me a better cook than those recipes. The calendar also shows that I was cooking only about four evenings a week during these two months, and I can't even remember how we spent our time outside the house.
2) March 2020: First half of the month, I stopped paying for the FasterWay recipes, and tried to maintain a dairy and gluten-free diet on my own. The challenge really begins halfway through the month, for obvious reasons.
3) April/May 2020: I run a pretty tight meal schedule, as I've described in my previous post. "Eating Out" is replaced with steak. Going to the grocery store becomes my only way out of the house. We eat a lot of Reid's Fine Foods. The workers still don't recognize me after taking my temperature almost daily.
4) May/June 2020: Try and use beets and carrots from our garden. We eat our first asparagus harvest! We eat outside every meal. The weather saves our lives.
5) June/July/August 2020: Large group cooking at the Vineyard for family. Using up the tomatoes in the garden. Lots of panzenella salads with no cheese, since I am largely avoiding mozzarella (though still occasionally making the old tomato mozzarella standby).
6) September/October/November/December 2020: Zoom school returns. Preschool returns and saves my life. We return to a pretty standard meal schedule that is largely dairy-free, but with a new emphasis on feeding the kids what they like (even more than before...). Recipes focus on Chicken Pot Pie, Meatloaf, and other kid friendly fare. I finally made pie crust (my one pandemic goal). I cooked no holiday meals for the first time in ten years.
New cook books acquired this year: Sam Sifton's See you on Sunday and Vivian Howard's This Will Make it Taste Good.
Cookbooks used the most:
1) Skinnytaste's One and Done, as well as her first and original Everyday continue to be used almost every other week. Her Turkey Meatloaf and Chicken Pot Pie are two of the kids' favorite meals.
2) The Dinner Plan and Keepers: I continue to cook through these gems. All the recipes are on point and well tested. I have repeated mostly salmon recipes, mainly the Southwest Salmon, and the Yogurt Marinated Salmon.
3) Jenny Rosenstrach's Dinner a Love Story/Celebrations/Dinner: The Playbook. Her marinated grilled chicken recipes are always summer hits, i.e.. her Picnic Chicken, and her Yogurt Marinated Lemon Grilled Chicken. Also, her prose and blog were a balm during quarantine.
4) New York Times Food App. No competition for its search functions, and the fact that it stays open as you cook the recipe.
Recipe Review 2020
I couldn't think too hard about this, or I would never write this.
Best overall dish: Vivian Howard's Chicken Toast from This Will Make it Taste Good.
Best comfort food that never gets old: Burgers from Reid's Fine Foods. Add Chef Alyssa's Tomato Jam, and you are transported.
Best Stew: Southern Living's One Pot Beef Stew. I tried many this past year and I always enjoy the dab of Dijon mustard added at the end of this one.
Best New Potato Salad: Sam Sifton's Potato Salad from See you on Sunday surpasses any potato salad I have ever made. It will be hard to make a different one in the future.
Best and most versatile vegan meal: Melissa Clark's Black Bean Tacos with Pickled Onions. Kids eat them and can add cheese. I get a dairy-free/gluten-free meal that is really, really good and easy.
Best dairy free soup: Mark Bittman's Carrot Soup. Uses coconut milk. With the use of an immersion blender, there are not many dishes to clean. Win/win!
Cooking Resolutions for 2121
1) Continue the search for good dairy free recipes.
2) Continue to try different recipes for meatloaf/meatballs and chicken pot pie.
3) My husband wants me to make gazpacho.
4) Make this NY Times pizza dough. First I have to buy the flour.
