2013 Magnificent Seven | The Plaid Pladd Blog

Archive for the ‘2013 Magnificent Seven’ Category

2013 Plans: Just Checking In To Remind You You’re Terrible

April 12th, 2013 by pladd

So we’re about a quarter of the way through 2013, and I thought I should check in to see how well I’m accomplishing my seven amazing goals for this year!!!!

1. Make at least one recipe from each of our cookbooks
As we discussed Friday, I am way behind on this one. I’ve done 6, and there are about 35, which puts me at only 17% complete. I know I come up with a different number each time I count how many cookbooks we have. This is mostly due to me not knowing what constitutes a cookbook or not. A lot of our kitchen stuff came with little booklets that have recipes in them, and some of the food books on the shelf are more about the science of cooking than actual recipes to make. Don’t worry, I’m totally going to make a spreadsheet.

You know it’s the only way

I’m certainly not as far behind schedule as I could be, but I definitely need to step it up with this one.

2. Read 200 Books

Goodreads is keeping me honest, but stressing me out

This number would definitely be higher if each Game of Thrones book wasn’t so freaking long. Don’t worry, I’ll check out an entire manga series some weekend and catch right back up. I’m behind on this one too, but I am determined.

3. Knock off at least one state from my map of States I’ve Visited

Who knows how much longer beautiful South Dakota will be there?

I haven’t done this one yet either, but Steven and I have made some tentative plans to visit West Virginia for our birthdays. And by “tentative plans” I mean I said “We should totally just drive there” and he said “Whatever”. I’ll take it.

4. Lift weights at least once a week

Fool, I have been doing it TWICE A WEEK!!!! YES! Finally, a goal I am on track to accomplishing. 1/7

5. Knit a Cardigan

Oh the trials of this cardigan. I’ve had a lot of problems, guys, none of them (that I know of) related to my knitting ability. The pattern I chose doesn’t seem to correspond to US sizes so it’s way too big, the yarn I bought ran out, the yarn I tried to replace it with was a slightly different color… anyway, I was going to give up where I am now, with a weird sleeveless cardigan that is like a sweater vest with buttons, but my mom convinced me it wouldn’t look that weird if the sleeves were a contrasting color. So I bought some new yarn and am starting some sleeves. We’ll see how this turns out. I keep having to make up my own pattern when the one I have doesn’t make sense… but I have 8 months to knit two sleeves, so I think I’m on track for this one too, barring any future ridiculous knitting mishaps. 2/7

6. Send out my entire stash of postcards

I think I have sent 3 out of 50. So, yeah, going to have to go on a postcard binge sometime soon.

7. SUPER SECRET SEVENTH RESOLUTION

Unfortunately, this is the only one I have been diligently working on, but I can’t tell you anything about my progress lest it stop being SUPER SECRET. So far things are AWESOME so I am hoping to be able to show you AWESOME RESULTS by the end of the year. I think I’m even slightly ahead of schedule, but there’s no way to be sure. Still, I’m giving it to me to save my self-esteem. 3/7

So I’m behind on more than half of my seven goals for 2013. Whatever, GO BIG OR GO HOME. I can do this. Even if it means cooking three meals a day and mailing 28 postcards in December. Bring it. I am still hella pumped about each one of these.

Except for you, cardigan. I kind of hate you now.

Tagged: 2013, life goal, resolutions

Posted in 2013 Magnificent Seven |

Cookbook update: Six Down

April 9th, 2013 by pladd

4 months in to my New Year Plan to make one recipe out of each of my cookbooks, and I’m not doing as good as I thought I would be. Time to step it up.

Hello, Cupcake! by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson

You may remember this book from that time I tried make fake spaghetti and meatball cupcakes (incidentally, to find that link I went through every blogpost tagged “cupcake”. It was a delicious odyssey through my past.) This book is awesome, but often sets the bar way too high. I’m terrible at art things in general, and feel very accomplished if I can frost something better than a five-year-old. The technique explanations in the front are helpful, but I think I would need a lot more practice to do most of the suggestions in here. Others look really cool, but might not taste very good, like the fake corn on the cob cupcakes made out of yellow and white jellybeans. Anyway, it took me awhile to choose a recipe that I thought looked easy enough for me to accomplish and also good enough for me to eat:

You’ve seen these guys before

The hardest part was separating out the Oreos so that all the frosting was on one side. Recipe at the end.

Also, the slightly less dramatic:

The Everything Pressure Cooker Cookbook by Pamela Rice Hahn

This one may be less flashy than cupcakes, but there’s no denying it’s super useful. We got it as a wedding present from the Wiess masters (well, I guess the ex-Wiess masters by then) along with a magical pressure cooker/slow cooker/rice cooker device. It is easily the best kitchen thing I own. Seriously, you should get one if you like cooking at all. We use it at least two or three times a week, whether to cook rice or chicken fast or to slow cook a whole meal. I decided to try something I’ve always wanted to make:

Pear butter!

The recipe was really easy (as you can see after the cut), but it didn’t turn out like I was expecting. In the end, it was more like an applesauce consistency than a butter. Still delicious on a toasted English muffin though!

Recipes: Read the rest of this entry »

Tagged: cookbooks, cooking, cupcakes

Posted in 2013 Magnificent Seven |

Broccoli Rabe with Chickpeas

March 1st, 2013 by pladd

This is my favorite thing I’ve cooked for this project so far!! I originally chose it because we had all of the ingredients besides the broccoli, but I’m glad I did. It was really easy to make and so delicious! It uses broccoli rabe or rapini instead of normal broccoli, which I find much easier to prepare and cook with, so totally okay with me.

This picture doesn’t do it justice

It’s from this book:

Lidia’s Family Table by Lidia Matticchio Bastianich

This one is originally Steven’s and I guess is from a PBS cooking show of the same name. Unlike the other Italian cookbooks I’ve found in our bookcase so far, it has a lot more than just recipes. There’s lots of information about techniques, pairing pastas and sauces, stocking the kitchen, and background on different Italian styles. I hope the rest of the recipes are as tasty and easy as this one was!! I will definitely be making it again.

I guess it’s good that so far I haven’t discovered any cookbooks I want to get rid of! Well, except maybe the gimmicky coke one. Read the rest of this entry »

Tagged: cookbooks, recipes

Posted in 2013 Magnificent Seven |

Soup is the best: two more cookbooks down

February 12th, 2013 by pladd

I love winter for a lot of reasons, but one of the main ones is that my obsession with soup stops seeming really weird when the weather gets colder. I never let something like 100 degree heat stop me from enjoying delicious soup, but it seems more socially acceptable in the winter months. The perfect time to knock out some of my cookbook goals! First up was this guy:

Twelve Months of Monastery Soups by Brother Victor-Anotine d’Avila-Latourrette

Soup was probably the first thing I learned to cook on my own because of its simplicity, and I’ve had this book since high school. The recipes are divided by month to help in using seasonal ingredients, and the bottoms of the pages are decorated in medieval woodcuts and proverbs about soup (“Eat soup first and eat it last, and live till a hundred years be past”). Often the recipes have stories about their origins or different variations too. Most of them are pretty simple, but hearty, and if any meat is used at all, it’s only in the optional chicken broth. You have to fiddle with some of these recipes, but it’s not hard because they’re usually pretty simple. I’ve had the book for so long that I have a lot of notes penciled in the margins about that, but I can see how some people would find it frustrating. I chose to make the Pasta and Lentil Soup, because lentils are delicious!

I know this picture isn’t beautiful, but it was definitely tasty

I had to add a lot more water than the recipe called for, and it still ended up being more stew like, but still delicious with some bread and a little Parmesan cheese. Of course I am keeping this book, I can’t get enough soup!!

As evidenced the week after when, with a whole book of Italian food to choose from, I still decided to make soup again:

Italian & Pasta: Quick and Easy, Proven Recipes

I got this book as a wedding present from my favorite math teacher (sorry, Mom, but I was never in your class) along with AMAZING HOMEMADE POTTERY, and I’m ashamed to say I haven’t cooked anything from it until now. It’s not as tall as most of our cookbooks (though just as thick: 350 pages of delicious!), and I think it was getting lost behind some of them. Well, that mistake has been rectified because this book is SO GOOD!! Each recipe is only a page spread, one of which is a giant picture, so none of them are too complicated and I always know what I’m aiming for (Steven always makes fun of me for this, but cookbooks really can’t have enough pictures in them–I want to see what I’m making to whet my appetite!). The only weird thing about it is how the recipes are divided. The table of contents has sections for: “Soups & Appetizers”, “Fish & Shellfish”, “Meats”, “Poultry & Game”, “Vegetables & Salads”, and “Entertaining & Dessert”. As you can imagine, there’s a lot of overlap, especially because “Entertaining” just seems to mean appetizers and entrees for larger groups of people. Luckily, there’s also an index so finding the recipe you’re thinking of need not be that difficult.

I decided to make the Classic Minestrone

I’ve made minestrone before, but this one was a little bit different, because it included bacon. I was wary of this step (I’m not really a huge fan of bacon), but it ended up tasting good since there wasn’t very much of it. It just added a more meaty, salty flavor to the broth. I can’t wait to try more recipes from this book! Both recipes after the cut: Read the rest of this entry »

Tagged: 2013, cookbooks, recipes

Posted in 2013 Magnificent Seven |

2013 Cookbook Project: Coca-Cola: Refreshing Recipes

January 18th, 2013 by pladd

I wanted to start off my New Year’s Resolution to make one recipe out of each of our (completely underused) cookbooks with this one, partially because I considered it a challenge! Also because we’ve had it for like two years (I think it was a Christmas gift to Steven) and have never used it once.

Plus, I spent at least once of those years thinking it was a joke

This book actually has a ton of recipes in it, with chapters on Soups & Starters, Beef & Pork, Poultry & Seafood, Sides, Sauces & Salads, and Desserts. A lot of them don’t really use that much Coke–maybe a little in the sauce where you might normally use sugar–which would explain how they could work in so many different kinds of recipes, from Asian beef to paella. But, let’s be real, you could easily make any of these without Coke. In fact, for most of them I think you could follow the recipe in the Coke cookbook, but omit the Coke, and still be fine. It really didn’t seem like it made too much of a difference in most of these recipes, which is probably for the best tasty-recipe-wise. The one I decided to make was “Sweet and Spicy Shrimp Tacos with Mango Salsa” (recipe after the cut):

Steven and I are both pretty bad at folding tacos so the stuff doesn’t fall out so we usually don’t even try

It turned out delicious! I’m always a little nervous about cooking shrimp, and the process usually involves me yelling “What do you think now?” at Steven multiple times before we both agree that they’re probably beyond done. I really liked the mango salsa, although we started late so it didn’t get to steep the required 1 hour in the fridge before we ate it. This meal was kind of weird, but good, and not really as much work as its length made me think it would be. I guess this book makes the cut, even if it is a little silly. Especially since I still want to try some of the desserts, like Coca-Cola Float Cupcakes.
Recipe: Read the rest of this entry »

Tagged: 2013, cookbooks, recipes

Posted in 2013 Magnificent Seven, Food, Things I've Made |

2013 Plans

January 4th, 2013 by pladd

I am not really a big fan of resolutions, I think because most of the time they are so vague. This is probably the fifth year I’ve thought “I should really eat more vegetables” but then after a week of roasted broccoli and fancy salads I forget to make a special effort. For resolutions to work, at least for me, they have to be more specific, explicitly stating the goal and how it’s going to be achieved. That’s why my only achieved new year’s resolution ever, the January Letter Writing Project, was successful at all: there was a clear goal and a clear to-do list to achieve it. Write a letter every day for a month. Also, the goal was achievable, at least for me, who doesn’t find writing letters to be particularly onerous. It’s too easy to burn out by setting yourself personally unreachable goals. I’d like to say that I’m going to write ten pages every day until my final draft is done, but you know that’s not going to happen, and certainly not well. Why set yourself up for failure? So this year I’m laying down some goals with actual numbers and time lines involved in the hopes that I won’t just forget about it in a week or give up because I have unrealistic expectations.

1. Make at least one recipe from each of our cookbooks

This is the one I’m most excited about! We have a whole shelf of cookbooks (about 38, by my count), and some of them we received as gifts and have maybe never even opened. This project will not only hopefully help me discover good recipes we already own, but maybe will also help me weed some of them that we don’t need. So basically I am hosting a reality show in my kitchen where each week I put a different book up to an arbitrary test. Will they survive? Or be sentenced to library donation? I’m sure I’ll update you dramatically as I go. I only have to do like three a month to get through them all, so I’m not really worried about this one, although some of the books will be easier to accomplish than others. Like Steven’s ancient Roman cookbooks? It’s possible I will have to substitute something for dormouse. Also one of them may be a joke cookbook by Sir Terry Pratchett, but whatever, go big or go home.

2. Read 200 Books

I struggled deciding what number to set myself. In my journal when I wrote these out a month ago I actually vowed 300, but this morning that seems a little far-fetched. According to my goodreads account, my most prolific reading year was 2011, when I read just short at 193 books. Okay, before that I wasn’t really keeping careful track, but still. In 2012 I only managed 108, so my 2013 goal is basically twice as much reading. 200 is still 3-4 books a week and 16-17 books a month. Granted, I can whip through children’s, non-fiction, or graphic novels pretty quick, but that’s still a lot of reading. I’m confident that this one can be done, but I’m not sure if it will.

3. Knock Off At Least 1 State from My Map

Some day, Nebraska

As Brian pointed out, West Virginia would probably be the easiest to accomplish since it’s only 3 hours away, but who knows what the year will bring?? Maybe I will take an Alaskan cruise!! You never know.

4. Lift weights at least once a week

I’ve kind of been doing this anyway, so listing it as a resolution might be cheating. Originally I’d written, “Work my way up to lifting TWICE AS MUCH!!!!” but I’m not really sure if that’s even possible or how. I’m not very knowledgeable about weight lifting so I will probably just see how it goes rather than set potentially impossible and dangerous goals.

5. Knit a cardigan

Apparently my brother has a New Year’s Resolution to Look More Like Mr. Rogers while still being swathed only in obnoxious goldenrod. Finding the right color yarn might be tricky, but I’ve already found a free pattern on Ravelry, a knitting and crochet social networking site I discovered last year. I know, I joined to make fun of the concept too, but then it quickly seduced me with its free patterns and tutorials and being able to brag about my knitting accomplishments. Sigh.

You can laugh all you want. I still kind of do

6. Send out my entire stash of postcards

I can’t entirely abandon my annual show of solidarity with the USPS. Except this time I’m giving myself an entire year since I have more than a month’s worth of postcards.

7. SUPER SECRET SEVENTH RESOLUTION

Unfortunately, I can’t reveal my super secret seventh resolution yet, although I hope that before the end of the year (okay, probably 12/31/13 but still) I will be able to write a dramatic, picture-filled blog post about how I kicked its ass. I am already hard at work to achieving it, but I know it will take pretty much the whole year, if it’s achievable at all.

Wait, what am I saying, GO BIG OR GO HOME, PLADD. Anything is possible with a library card!

Tagged: 2013, books, knitting, life goal, reading, resolutions

Posted in 2013 Magnificent Seven, lists |