eleven in 2011

Though I don’t do very well with New Year’s resolutions, I still like to set goals for myself to make sure I continue to learn and grow. This year for both of my blogs I’m picking 11 goals that I want to meet in 2011, and I’ll use the blogs to keep track of my progress.

erichan*eats – eleven in 2011

1. Write in this blog at least once every 2 weeks.
I’m setting this as a goal for both my blogs, because I really do want to keep this site fresh and active but know full well that I have problems keeping up with it. posting once every 14 days isn’t much, but it should be manageable for me – hopefully I’ll be able to do more, but I figure if I set low expectations for myself I’m more likely to meet them.

2. Learn to grow edible plants (vegetables and herbs) at home.
It is a longterm life goal of mine (and Justin’s) to be as self-sufficient as possible when it comes to acquiring and producing the food we eat, and the first step on that road is learning to garden. Now that we have an apartment with a balcony that gets tons of sun, I finally have the space to start learning.

3. Start an Etsy store to sell homemade candies online.
My aunts and uncles put me up to this after I became the only person in our family to successfully make my Grandma’s coffee caramels other than my Grandma herself. Its something I’ve thought about doing many times, though, and I’ve decided that this is the year to bite the bullet!

4. Take a cooking/baking class at a real culinary school.
Believe it or not, I have never taken a single cooking class, and since I’m seriously considering enrolling in a professional program at some point in the next few years, I think now would be a good time to sort of try it out and see if its for me.

5. Cook from The French Laundry Cookbook at least once every 2 months.
The recipes are challenging but the food is awesome, and there is much to be learned from Thomas Keller’s methods. I think this may be one of the best ways for me to continue to grow and improve my skills on my own time.

6. Learn to make macarons.
Seemingly the holy grail of home bakers everywhere, and yet I’ve never even eaten one. That needs to change.

7. Make a decorated celebration cake that’s actually attractive.
I’ll never be much of a cake decorator but I ought to at least be able to make something pretty (but still delicious!) if I want or need to. I think I’ll have at least one good opportunity to fulfill this goal this year, so we’ll see.

8. Perfect my recipes for garlic dill and bread-and-butter pickles.
I’ve been making pickles for years, but they always come out different and I routinely have trouble with the texture of the pickles even when I get the flavor right. I think its about time I figured out how to do them consistently well and then actually formalize the recipe so I can repeat it for years to come.

9. Infuse my own gin.
Gin is my favorite hard liquor, and I’ve been intrigued by recipes I’ve seen in the last 6 months or so to make compound gin by infusing neutral spirits with custom herb and spice blends. Eventually I want to create my own recipe and never have to buy gin again, so I gotta start somewhere.

10. Start a sourdough starter, keep it alive, and make bread with it at least once per month.
This has been on my to-do list for probably 2 years. Its time to just do it.

11. Learn to use my pasta roller and make filled pastas.
There is absolutely no food product in the world that I love more than pasta, so it is an absolute necessity that I should be able to make quality pasta at home. Now that I’ve got a roller I need to get comfortable using it, and although of course I want to just make lots of noodles, I’ve always struggled with the techniques for making filled pastas and really want to focus on getting that down.