Cooking Progress - January

One of the resolutions I made for 2014 was to cook something new once a month. Normally, I make a ton of resolutions in a new year (or any time of year, frankly) but end up avoiding putting any effort into them for months at which point I realize that I actually did want to do that thing, go gung ho for a short period of time, and then forget again. Not this year! This year I'm actually starting things in January and instead of cooking one new food this month, I cooked THREE.

I know. I'm impressed with me, too.

I'm also pretty happy with how all three things turned out, which is definitely not always the case when I make something I've never made before. So basically, I'm just sitting around patting myself on the back here - it's fine.

Without further ado, this month I made:

 Manicotti! Is there any way that a bunch of cheese, pasta, and sauce COULDN'T be delicious? Absolutely not. I've always really loved getting manicotti in restaurants but never attempted to cook it myself - getting stuff inside pasta tubes sounds hard and cooking the pasta and then baking it too? Ughhhh, it's just too much for me. And honestly, it was a bit of a pain filling the tubes, but they tasted great in the end. Would I go out of my way to make them again? Probably not, but I'm really glad I did. (I basically used the recipe on the back of the pasta box, but added more ricotta and mozzarella. More cheese is always how I roll.)

Buffalo Chicken Lettuce Wraps! This was my first journey into cooking with a crockpot, which was a little nerve-wracking. Additionally, I found the recipe on the low fat cooking blog and I generally find those types of recipes to be pretty hit or miss in terms of actually tasting good. Luckily, I survived using the crock pot and it tasted really good. I liked it even better the next day as a regular sandwich. Oops, give me all the carbs. I used more hot sauce than the recipe called for, too. More is more for me when I cook things.

Blackberry Crumb Cake! This was a recipe that I cut out of Real Simple magazine a couple years ago, but never got around to making it. We basically already had all of the ingredients besides the blackberries, so it was an easy choice to make this month. I served it with a little vanilla icecream, easy breezy beautiful cover girl.

Sidenote: I spent a little more time than I'd like to admit trying to figure out why the food processor wasn't actually processing my ingredients. It was because I forgot to put the blade back in. Professional baker right here, y'all!

In conclusion, it was a good month for making new foods and I think they were well liked all around. I'm calling this month a success and am excited to pick out recipes for February. I'm also excited to look up some tips for food photography that don't include wasting time actually setting up a scene/lighting. These were all taken on my lap seconds before eating them. Don't food bloggers foods get cold!?