Good Eats and Greets

A few years back I was doing this thing where I was trying out one new recipe each week. It was either an entree or a dessert or a side thing. There wasn't much order to it past the "something new each week" deal.  I've decided I need to get back into that.  We've gotten into a cycle at home where we keep having the same things over and over. We get home, we're tired, someone says "what do you want for dinner" and we have the same old same old. So I need to expand my repertoire.  And after searching through cookbooks tonight, I've decided I need a better plan than "one new things per week". That's just way to vague.  My plan for all of this is to aim for the weekends which means either dinner parties...or left overs.  Either way, we win. So....my plan...until it changes....is a 3 parter.

I'll try out something each month using tofu or tempeh. It's healthy, it's good for you (which might even be the same thing) it's non-meat and since it's flexible with the flavors, hopefully we'll be able to do interesting things with it. At lunch today, Barb mentioned that Alton Brown had an episode involving tofu, so I'll have to check that out because, as everyone knows (or should know) Alton is the man. Also, he used to be a videographer/producer in a former life so that's cool too.  And outside of his show that everyone should watch, Good Eats he also had this show Feasting on Aspalt, which was kind of a roadtrip foodtrip documentary...thing. It was fun, and you should watch it. Right now!


I think I'll also aim for making a meal each month using only local and nearby foods. This will take some research as I generally don't know what's in season when.  It's not something I really pay attention to but I should.  Eating locally is generally better in most regards, except when you want fish in the midwest, which luckily, I do not. Ever.

PBS has this series called E squared (except it's E with the superscript 2 which I can't seem to make here. All I can make is E2, which makes me think of Caesar). Anywhoo, it's all about "The Economics of Being Environmentally Conscious" (tm) and here's an episode that is somewhat connected to what I just said.

Watch the full episode. See more e2.

And finally, I think I'll try something traditionally foreign...this might end up being an every other month deally. We'll see.  But I'll aim for a traditional Japanese dish, or Indian or Italian, whatever tweaks my fancy that month.  It'll also be interesting to see what passes for "traditionally X".  I guess I'll have to define that at some point.

So...I will consider this week's quota fulfilled as I made some cookies from a recipe I hadn't tried before.  They were from the New York Times (passed down by The Webb) and really quite good.  I don't feel the need to explore more chocolate chip recipes as Barb has already done that. Okay, I am going to try Alton's recipe because he's on TV and I always listen to people on TV.

I feel I should have a better conclusion...right now it's pretty "meh"

oh well.