Anniversary and New Resolutions

Well, it has officially been one year since I started posting on this blog. I did technically start it in September of '06, but then did nothing with it till I made it one of my 2007 resolutions to actually use it. And here we are! One year, over 100 posts, and lots of calories later. I posted yesterday on some of my favorite recipes over the past year, so no need to continue reminiscing. Let's look forward. Here are some of my food & blog related resolutions for the new year.

• Participate in more blog events. I can't remember the last blog event I took part in, which is a little sad. I need to get a little more involved in the community again. Not that I was ever totally immersed in it, but it does me some good to take on the challenge laid out by these events.
• Cross one thing off my to-cook list each month. I have a very long to-cook list. Some of the stuff on there has been on there for months and months. I need to make some of these things so that the list can continue to be refreshed, instead of just growing longer.
• Cook two recipes from each of my cookbooks. I don't have that many cookbooks, but I still have made very few recipes from the ones I do have. Over the next year I need to make at least two recipes from each cookbook. If I can't manage to do that then I need to rethink whether I even want the book on my shelf.
• Push myself to be more adventurous with ingredients. A lot of foods scare me. A lot. If I haven't had it before, chances are I'm afraid of cooking with it. I need to get over that and broaden my horizons. I know this place is called Small Time Cooks, but that doesn't mean I need to stick to all my biases.
• Explore vegan cooking and recipes. My friend LeAnn recently went vegan again. She had been vegan before, but then laxed and let me feed her some cheese. But she's back to enforcing the law and I like having her and Rob over for dinner, so I better figure out what I can feed her over the next year.
  
• Organize my kitchen and make it someplace I like to be. I do like my kitchen, but it's so darn tiny. It could use a little reorganizing. It could use some freshening up. And the cheaper I can do this, the better.
• Cook more over the weekends. Currently I cook through the week and take a bit of a break over the weekends. Cooking more through the whole week would help us save money and calories. And give me more fodder for this little space.
• Improve my food photography skills. Learning how to better use my new camera and more about photography is a resolution in general for me this year, but I want to extend that particularly into the area of food photography. I left a video shoot last weekend with several can lights, so I need to play around with them soon too.
• Explore the local farmer's markets. Besides the one in my father-in-law's backyard. But better utilize that one too. ;)

Thanks to everyone who stops by my tiny corner of the blogging world. I appreciate everyone's comments, suggestions, and criticisms. Here's to a new year spent in the kitchen!