New Year Resolutions: Get cooking & baking

Happy New Year! it’s the 3rd January so time to start your New Years Resolutions. Mine include ones to improve my cooking and baking skills do yours?

I’ve been writing resolutions each year for a few years now. Nothing too taxing, just things I want to achieve or do in the year. I make sure they include as much fun stuff as self improvement. I got into the habit with a friend of mine and we often write joint resolutions. One of our joint ones for 2016 was to make a steamed sponge pudding as neither of us ever had. I wrote my resolutions on my phone then lost them when I changed my phone in February!  I forgot about the sponge pudding resolution until on holiday with the same friend this Christmas.  I was determined the pudding would get made and so it did….. on New Years Eve.

It was a delicious quince pudding using up the quincemeat I made in December and the last of the quinces I’d bought and served with whipped cream laced with quince vodka.

If you want to know more about the quincemeat have a look at my FaceBook Live video

I liked the fact I was improving  my baking skills so I decided I’d have more baking & cooking resolutions for 2017. These are:

1. Get into fermenting. I meant  to make Kimchi and water kefir last year but never got round to it so 2017 is going to be my year of fermenting
2.  Make my own flatbread. I’ve only really dipped my toe into bread a few times as it takes   sooo long ( well without a bread machine and especially when the last bread I made  was a sourdough!). I thought I’d try flatbread as a quick way to get into bread. Luckily I’ve a lovely cookbook, Vegiestan by Sally Butcher, with a chapter on flatbreads which is a good start.
3. Expand my healthy cake range.I started working with Jenny from Active- eat last year to develop cakes which are good for you. ( See my blog post from last year: An apothecary of buns.)We then both got a bit busy so let it drift but we’re back on it this year. We are meeting up on Friday to make Kale Cheesecake ( gluten & dairy free). Keep an eye on our Facebook pages for how we do with that
4.  Eat less processed food. In fact my husband and I have challenged ourselves to eat no processed food this January which may be a bit of a tall order. We’re currently trying to define what we mean by “processed”. He’s going with “nothing made in a factory” which cuts out an awful lot. ( I mean flour is made in a factory isn’t it?) I’m going with ” food made from ingredients not food with a list of ingredients”. Whose definition do you prefer?

So have you got any cooking or baking resolutions? Please comment and  let me know. Maybe you want to cook more with your family. Maybe you want to learn more about how to cook with wild ingredients or maybe you want learn more about preserving. If so, guess what? I’ve going to have some classes coming up at Get Cooking! Cookery school in Farsley Leeds covering just those topics ( amazing hey?)

You can book now onto my child & family baking class on 14th February. Then I have a baking with nature class in June combining foraging for wild ingredients with baking & cordial making. Next up is an apple preserving class in the Autumn where we’ll be making apple juice, cider and chutney. If you want to hear more about my baking classes please fill in our contact form to be added to my mailing list for news and offers.

Don’t forget to comment with your baking & cooking resolutions or tell me why you don’t make any. Good luck with all your resolutions and have a great start to 2017.