The Project
Originally published at Modern Domestic Geek. You can comment here or there.
I don’t have a better name for this - perhaps someone will come up with something brilliant. But here it is - I’m going to be doing a year long cooking project. The idea springs from the Julie/Julia project, but the core of it comes from my friend Bryan - who pinged me to tell me how much he loved my SIL’s family’s Irish Band, Ceann. This man is the reason I first made soup last year. We got to talking, and he mentioned Alton Brown’s book about baking (I’m Just Here for More Food) - that if you want to be a better baker, read this book. This put together with the copy of Good Eats that I knew was under the tree, and I had an idea for a cooking project.
Now I needed to think about this - I have to think about my goals for the year. If I’m going to get back on the Curves eating plan - I need to be on my lower carb plan and eating much simpler food for it to keep working. So no project where I had to cook every day. Not to mention - I want to expand my cooking horizons - not go insane - since I still have all the other stuff I need to do which keeps me busy most day. It would just not be practical for me to be putting dinner on the table at 10pm. I knew it had to be Alton - I love Good Eats, and he does SCIENCE - and while I’ve been mired in government stuff for 15 years, at the core of things, I was a bio major, and would have had a minor in chemistry if it hadn’t been for a little class called PChem. So here we go:
The Project - to be named something clever later. I’m thinking of a contest, where the winner gets cookies from me.
The Reference Materials: I’m Just Here for the Food 2.0, I’m Just Here for More Food, Gear for Your Kitchen, Good Eats: the Early Years, and Feasting on Asphalt, all by Alton Brown.
The Challenge: Cook one meal using Alton Brown’s techniques and recipes a week for 2010.
Here are the guidelines:
1. One meal shall consist of four dishes/recipes - since this is usually how I plan out my meals. The dishes will be a Protein, a Starch, Produce, and Dessert. They are defined below.
Protein - A dish where the main focus is meat, tofu, some sort of protein. Eggs may count in there.
Starch - Potatoes, Corn, Rice, Noodles, Bread etc.
Produce - Salads, Veggies, Fruits - stuff that would be a side dish. I know some Produce can be starches, and fruits can be desserts, but we are looking at side dishes here, and I want to focus on the veggies, because I think I don’t eat enough vegetables, and I am trying to eat healthier and lose weight.
Dessert - my favorite part of the meal - will be something sweet, or meant to be served at the end of the meal.
2. The Dishes prepared don’t have to be prepared all at the same meal. BUT - if they are - I get a gold star, and after I get a certain amount of gold stars I get a reward. This is to keep my sanity - and sometimes life gets really busy - so if I can take care of a vegetable dish as part of a regular dinner in a week, that will be a Good Thing. And I think it gives me some flexibility with breakfast, etc.
3. Weeks will start on Sunday. There are 52 Sundays in 2010 - I counted. So - the Project shall commence today, January 3.
4. No Dishes may be prepared twice and count. So that means 208 recipes in 52 weeks. If I did the math right.
5. Once a month, I must try something new. Must. I can do it more than once a month, but once I month, I must try using a new food I’ve never cooked with, or try a new technique. Some examples of food will be - Artichokes, Duck, Lamb, etc. Some techniques will be Broiling, Braising, etc.
6. I’m going to write about each dish, and hopefully photograph it when it’s done. I’m in negotiations with Dan to help me with that. I think when I do all four Dishes in one meal, they may get less coverage. Also - if I need to buy a new piece of hardware in the course of this project, I’ll review it. And I’ll talk about it in the upcoming podcast, though most of the detail will be here on the blog.
Caveat - if I get so sick of looking at all these cookbooks, I can use an Alton recipe from the Food Network archives online. This is only as a last resort - I have about 300 plus recipes in all my books, so I should be able to do it just from there, but as in life - sometimes you need to go off the book.
So - I think that will work. I have all the books, and I like how Alton breaks down techniques in his “I’m Just Here” series. The first book is arranged by cooking type, and the baking method is arranged by mixing method. Quite innovative. There are some things that I’m not sure where they will fit - I do want to learn about sauces too - and it may just be that the dish that week will be a commonly cooked item with an Alton sauce on it.
During the course of the year, I want to refine my kitchen gear as well so at the end of it I can toss or give away the kitchen stuff I never use. Though most of the stuff in there right now - I’ve used in the past year, so I can’t see it going away.
So that’s it. Who’s with me?