Some of my cooking plans for the new year include more fresh veggies and fruits and less junk. I will have a garden again this year and will eat fresh, can, freeze and dehydrate as much as possible. If I can't grow it, I will try to get it from local farmers markets. Hopefully I will be able to get a couple of chickens for fresh eggs, not meat. Let's see, I need to lose about 40 to 50 pounds, but I won't make any plans about that. I think the healthier diet will take care of that problem. I might even take on your approach, ruthanna, and pick out a cookbook to start trying out all the recipes given in it.

Madonna

ruthanna-

I had a bottle of nigella I purchased for a specific recipe, and by the time I ordered and received the nigella, I lost track of the recipe. Fortunately, I put the nigella in a pepper mill and I love it for an alternative to black pepper - so all was not lost.

What helps me now - I put recipes into files for specific ingredients/use/or some other category. Example: I recently purchased some gluten-free banana flour so I have a file of information, recipes, and uses for banana flour, as well as any recipes I develop myself using banana flour. My recipe collection goes way beyond the common categories (breads, salads, vegetables, etc.) due to my penchant for trying unusual ingredients and unusual ways to "cook" food: chia seeds, hi-maize resistant starch, recipes for solar ovens, recipes using passive cooking methods like Wonder Ovens, Thermos bottles and a thermal cooker; powdered peanut butter, goji berries, $1 meals, recipes that use one ripe banana.....

I will be following the old "Basic-4" like I've followed since the 1970's. It's an appropriate amount of food for our needs; I just need to make sure we eat a large variety of foods and avoid getting in a food "rut". That's the reason I like to try 3 new recipes each week.

Monday I'm starting a 10-day detox which includes avoiding all grains, not just those with gluten (I've been gluten-free since Jan. 2013). That should help get over the holiday indulgences and back on track again.

We had New Year's brunch at the lovely home of a friend of the family. It was nothing super grand, just a nice baked ziti, mincemeat bread and cranberry crunch cheesecake for dessert. But with the nice dishes and china! :) My mom's friend noted that when she and her husband and the kids all lived there, they still ate dinner in the dining room with a nice table setting and candles lit. No harm in that I guess! If I had a wish (has to be a wish because I don 't always have the resources to pull something like this off) I would wish to entertain more and even when not entertaining, have a nice dining area set up so I could enjoy a more formal eating atmosphere. I make dinner for my dad a couple times a week and do the whole table setting thing, but a lot of other times he does the paper plates or TV tray route. My usual route is to heat up something in the container it was stored in the fridge, less dishes to wash. I microwave almost everything since it doesn't make sense to put something in the oven or heat in a pot or pan for just one person.

Mostly my deal is passing on basic cooking, most specifically to the ten year old (and her father) and the college girl, who moved into her own place but only has a tenuous idea how to prepare a meal (not my own kids).

I like the idea of investigating one cookbook or kind of food. I made Dukkah an egyptian condiment for gifts this Christmas - it is delicious and was a big hit. I already have several cookbooks - one of north african food and one of lebanese that I haven't explored much. They are however full of ingredients I would have a hard time finding. Rendered sheep tail fat anyone?

I also want to learn new ways to prepare vegetables and beans. I am not a vegetarian but I only prepare meat a few times a month. I also have a fairly large garden. I tend to make variations on the same thing - stir fry, soups, chile...

Lastly my grammy lived to 101 - 40 of which as a widow. She lived alone for many years, she set her table with linens, silver and fine china. She ate everything she wanted but with moderation. I need to try to eat with more formality even though I live alone.

Agmss, I'm with you. I received a beautiful set of Noritake China with matching tea service as a "good-by" gift when I left Japan almost 50 years ago and have only used two plates once. I dearly love it because it is colors and designs you never see and is so elegant. I will start using it this year. Gee, now I'll have to buy gold flatware to go with it.

Madonna

Hi and happy 2016!

I don't believe in specific diet plans, although I do owe a lot to the Real Food movement, and a little to an adaptation of Paleo.

I lost 40 pounds over 4 years ago, and have kept them off. The plan was: NO to potato chips and soda -- I didn't drink soda much anyway, but the potato chips made me understand addiction -- and bring my OWN food to work for lunch 90-95% of the time, which helped me avoid the hidden sugars and starches in even their most "healthy" menu items. The result was weight loss, and a far better blood trigyceride and LDL/HDL profile.

I've added back some grains (rice, the pseudo grain quinoa), (and I never gave up on seasonal corn on the cob to begin with), over the past couple of years.

I don't have to be gluten-free, but I've read Davies' Wheat Belly, and thus choose to be low-gluten: I don't cook with gluten at home, but I eat what I am served, out. (Well, not tree nuts, but that's due to gastro-intestinal distress for at least some of them, and since i don't like some of the others to begin with, no point in experimenting... And no, no fiddlehead ferns, which I used to love every spring...)

This year: carry on with the basic plan -- I've very seldom have a craving for sweets anyway, so I figure the few times I do, it's my body telling me something.

Have a vegetable serving (at least) at every meal -- either green and leafy, or highly colored with apparent anti-oxidants, This will be hard when on the road (home fries don't count), but if I can at least do this at home, that's most of the battle.

Cook more vegetarian entrees, while remaining an omnivore. I just purchased a book - Silk Road Vegetarian: Vegan, Vegetarian and Gluten-Free Recipes for the Mindful Cook, by Klein. (For me, Gardenburgers and Fakin' Bacon just don't count as food, and defeat the purpose.) This cookbook looks awesome -- it draws upon regions of the world from the Mediterranean through Central Asia that have had a strong vegetarian component for centuries.

I'm with Grainlady about trying all sorts of new recipes. I do keep an extensive spice cabinet, as I like a variety of foods from around the world. I continue to focus on healthy fats and healthy carbs -- just trying to fine tune my ratios of fat/protein/carb.

If I buy cookbooks this year: highlight cultures or styles of cooking I'm not familiar with, and limit the purchases to about three... Weed through existing cookbooks and get rid of the less useful ones within categories.

Happy healthful eating for 2016!

ps, For those who live alone: I'm just one person, but I don't see that as any reason to choose not to eat well. Often I make plenty up for leftovers, or to take to work for lunch. Sundays are my big cooking-for-the-workweek day.

I recently got a cookbook called "The Soup Bible" - hoping to try more soup recipes and maybe make Wednesday nights "soup night". Used to generally be "pasta night" when the kids were home, but now they are in college and although I love pasta it doesn't love me.

More broth soups. Made a veg broth with a few duck necks and paws yesterday. Mostly veggie and leek greens.

No processed food but that is not at all new. I'll have to give up ...

(haha)

CSA for my meats and eating less. I know where my seafood is from. Eating smaller portions and variety. Less meat, more veg. Sprouted grain blends.

Ordering CSA for garden produce for my parents. 20 weeks starting spring.

We've been practicing 'mindfulness', 'food is fuel', during the work week. Really just a loose paying attention to what has been consumed by lunch, then by supper. Some work days we do 10 miles by lunch. (loose calculation by our cell phones). Food is free but lots of junk. And lots of good choices. A handful of fresh berries and a few walnuts instead of the poptarts the youth eat. A small chunk of dark chocolate with a tsp of almond butter instead of a choc croissant or bagel/cream cheese. Or reese cups. A small green juice instead of a smoothie, A tiny omelet with avocado instead of biscuits/gravy and tater-tots. lol.

By friday i break down and have a BLT on rye with extra 'B'. haha.

We just are mindful about variety. Being older it gets harder.

I like trying new things more than recipes. I see new things and research recipes and that is the fun part. Celeriac with its big green tops is a new one...i have had it in the past but really using it the past few weeks. I see a different un-known veg or fruit in ChinaTown and have to try it. Fresh turmeric, fresh figs...a couple years ago it was all things ginger...

This year might be about fermentation. DH has keifer grains going, sauerkraut, kimchi, and i've had kombucha going for a while now. Ginger and lemon grass. He want to make cheese with our friends pasture organic cow milk.

But we are trying got cut back on cheese...oy

No food resolutions or real plans. I already eat a LOT of vegetables, although I still don't like fruits, so I'm trying to eat more of those.

Like sleevendog, I just like to try new things. If there's something in the produce department or on the shelf that I don't know about, I just have to try it. I keep expanding my food horizons, LOL.

I'll keep raising grassfed beef, and already eat meatless meals at least a couple of times a week. I grind my own grain for bread, and haven't been happy with it yet, so I'll keep trying that.

I think my main cooking plan is to get this blasted ugly and inconvenient island ripped out in the kitchen and replace it with a usable substitute!

Annie

I don't think we eat terribly at main meals -- in a mixed veggie/omnivore household even the meat eater only gets beef once a week. Cuisines run the gamut and continue to do so. Getting good sources of varied protein continues to be a challenge. Excessive dairy and (terrible, shameful) snacks are the downfall around here. Tortilla chips and guacamole are the crack cocaine around here. Excessive eating out will continue, as we live in a food paradise.

Looking forward to working my way through some classic cookbooks while exploring more veg recipes. And trying my hand with the new InstantPot.

I need to settle in, cook again. Learn to cook for one person for daily meals and start entertaining again -- something I've not done in a long time.

When my husband (he was 60) was diagnosed with brain cancer in fall 2013, I took care of him full-time until his death in spring 2014. I sold our home in May 2015 and downsized to an old house and have been renovating since then. I've had only a compact fridge and a microwave for months now!

When my kitchen is finished (in a few weeks), I desperately need to find my creative cooking groove again. I need to find the person I used to be. Find joy again in the things I used to love when he was alive. Cooking and gardening to share with friends and family used to bring me so much joy. I want to feel that way again.

I think you will find that again, Dyhgarden. Best of luck to you.

I hear you DYH. I am working on downsizing my parents house after my mom died. Just going through her things and my things and deciding what to keep and what to get rid of. It's really not that easy, particularly when you don't know what your future life will be like so hard to say if you are going want that brandy snifter or not. Dad moved out of the old homestead into a condo which is very nice, but he's all out of sorts adjusting to living without mom and also things in boxes and a new set of routines and arrangements. He gets very depressed, because losing a loved one and moving are both very stressful events and he did both in one year. Me too, and I would dearly love to get my cooking and entertaining groove back but I don't know if it will happen. One step at a time. The hope is, and the idea is, that in the long run dad will be happier. Whenever I can get some things arranged and sorted, I feel better too. But there is so much to do, it is overwhelming. Takes away that homey feeling when you are staring at piles and piles and boxes and boxes. The last thing you feel like doing is cooking or entertaining!

Cooking is so entwined with house & home that it's understandable that it can be stressful after one loses a spouse. So much so that after my first wife died I gave away all our pots and pans and started anew. Eventually, though, the bad memories will subside and the good ones will rise to the top. Hang in there.

At any rate, for this year I plan to explore this cookbook. Kenji Lopez-Alt is an MIT grad who started working in restaurants and analyzed how cooking worked. If you like Shirley Corriher's Cookwise or the writings of Harold McGee, you'll love this. Not at all fussy, but very good food. I've only made one recipe from it so far--a pot roast--and it's better than any pot roast I've ever made. Looking forward to the journey.

I love Kenji's blog. Keep us posted on how it goes with his book.

I love Kenji's blog as well. I have placed a hold on his book now (only 50 people ahead of me for the 5 copies available). I was hoping that the library had Silk Road Vegetarian as well but no luck. Fortunately it is not one of the more expensive cookbooks so I should be able to swing for it soon.