A Christmas Present & A Goal

Every year I have a goal for the new year. I don't in particular resolve to do anything or set a goal to change something per se, but I do like to have a year long goal. This year I have decided to cook 150 different recipes. I won't blog every day, I won't necessarily blog in detail about every recipe, however I will keep track of the recipes that I have cooked and how many I have left to cook.

In light of my new endeavor my husband made Christmas an exciting time with that theme, after first clearing up the issue that getting cooking supplies isn't a 'Sleeping on the Couch' recipe in the making, hehe! I received several fun cooking things in my stocking and my main present was an excellent most fabulous Le Creuset 9.5 Quart 'French' Oven :) Oh I was like a little kid on Christmas! So excited!

My stocking was also filled with helpful kitchen gadgets to make my cooking adventure easier, including this gem - which I think is my new favorite tool. If you recall I love cooking gadgets and so getting new ones is always exciting - but to date this one is by far my favorite. It took NO time, less than a minute in fact to chop up this parsley. Score!


With all my new cooking tools I am ready to cook, bake, and slice and dice! So stay tuned for a lot of cooking over this next year. Enjoy following me this coming year and seeing the progress I am making on my 2010 goal of 150 different recipes in 365 days!

Kitchen Gadgets

I was destined to be a baker. Yes when I was young I used to "bake" sugar cookies with my Grum. She used to get all the dough ready to go get it rolled out nice and even and then I'd go to town with cookie cutters and all the fixings to dress up the fancy shapes. We did this for many Christmas seasons. Baking sugar cookies led to a general enjoyment of baking for me, and so it was only fitting that for my Birthday/Christmas present last year, my grandma bought me my Kitchenaid Mixer.

Arriving in more than enough time this now favorite kitchen gadget of mine whipped up many cookies, doughs, breads, etc for the holiday season. On Christmas night it whipped up a mean batch of mashed potatoes and it knows the ingredients to pumpkin bread like no other Kitchenaid mixer can. So while I do love to bake, we can't eat breads and cookies for dinners (every night.) And while this is my prized kitchen gadget and the most used in our household. I have an affinity toward unique kitchen gadgets and tools. Most of them aren't terribly useful on a regular basis, but are still applicable to something at least once or twice a year.

My latest gadget acquired was a cherry pitter. This particular one is made by Oxo and it has been used to make two cherry pies. Currently it is visiting a friend's house to assist with her cherry pitting party. It's a handy dandy tool during cherry season. Far easier than trying to slice cherries in order to pit them. Although if your cherries are overly ripe (which is always excellent for cherry pie) it will look like a massacre has occurred as there will be splatter everywhere!

I am able to pit enough cherries for a cherry pie (about 4 cups) in about 10 minutes. Before the cherry pitter came to live with us, I rarely made cherry pie.

Another favorite of mine is the crinkle cutter. It's 80% useful and 20% fun! It's a great blade to hold and chop carrots and celery without much effort and you get a delightful crinkle with each chop. Although the one I have has a green handle hold.


I have a feeling as I do start to cook more that this will get more use time. However, besides my Kitchenaid mixer, which will come in handy for mealtime cooking, I think I need to find a little inspiration in other kitchen gadgets that will help making cooking meals easier (or just fun!) What might you suggest I "need"?


* stock photos taken from Amazon.com