2021 In Review

I'm sure I'm not alone this time of year when I spend some time reflecting on the year that just passed and thinking about what I want to do moving forward. I do this for all aspects of my life from cooking, to finances, to work, to family, to health, etc. But since this blog is about cooking, I'll just cover that. I'll cover the other stuff on the "other" blog (which I'm going to try to write more on this next year...and maybe more interesting stuff).

My goal this year was 125 new recipes. I started doing this annual goal of "new" recipes when the pandemic hit in 2020. I was home, so why not cook. I have a ridiculously organized recipe index that allows me to select, randomly, recipes each week (maybe some day I'll talk about that process - it's intense). I set the goal of 125 because the previous year was 100 and I cooked 136. I felt like a sales person who hit their quota and therefore increased their next quota. In thinking about this next year, there's a very small chance I will be going back into the office occasionally, but I'll mostly be working at home. I considered not having a goal at all and just track the new recipes and see where I end up, but that's not very fun for me. So, I'm going to shoot for 150 New Recipes next year. 

Now for the nerdy stuff. 

This graph shows the total recipes by month. Clearly something was up in June and that something was that massive heat wave. NO ONE wants to cook when it's that hot. I averaged 14 recipes a month this year. 

I've been tracking my recipes since 2006. In the early days I randomly tried new recipes and "liked" to cook but didn't really focused on recipes. Then one day In 2010 or 2011 I decided to go through all my cookbooks and start a recipe index so I knew what was what. I mean, I had so many cookbooks and was not cooking anything from them. It's very clear by this next graph that the last two years cooking new recipes was a focus. 

I can't say my blog writing about recipes has gotten any better, but I believe this blog is ABOUT the recipe and not all the jibber jabber you find on so many other cooking blogs. Just get to the recipe. My aim is to cover these things: 

1. Did I like the recipe?
2. What did I change?
3. Would I make it again?

And on occasion I throw in a story about anything crazy that happened while I was cooking OR if the recipe pulls a heart string. But mostly, I'm about getting to the recipe. 

Because I have a recipe index (aka recipe data), I can also tell you the categories of recipes I cooked. This graph is not at all surprising to me. Beef and chicken are the two biggest categories of recipes I have, so naturally they are the bulk of new recipes. 

I feel like I cooked more stews than just 5, but maybe some of what I cooked wasn't a new recipe. I think I need to cook more fish for sure next year, maybe less beef. <insert sheepish grin>. I do love my beef though.

So that's the year in review. I find variety is the spice of life and the only way to get variety in my cooking is to continue to try new recipes. As of today I have over 1300 recipes in my index to still try. I will NEVER EVER get through all these. In fact, I add to it all the time and I remove recipes all the time. 

I will be doing a blog of my top 10 favorites, so stay tuned for that. 

Thank you for those who check in regularly and for those who just drop in occasionally. I love hearing from you when you try a new recipe. I hope this blog helps you try new recipes too. 

Happy New Year!