Not To Be Trusted With Knives

Goals for 2023 – Halfway Point Check In

July 7, 2023 by Beth

Given that I haven’t written a blog posting since my first quarter of the year goals check-in three months ago, I know right off the hop that I’m failing miserably on my goal of “Publish 52 blog postings” ((And I just did the math and I’ve only published 9 postings (including this one), this year. Which means I need to publish 1.7 blog postings per week to achieve my goal)). I’ve also made no progress on any of my 5 remaining “one off” goals. The “some other goals” that I was making progress on 3 months ago are continuing to progress ((e.g., for “Make a charitable donation every month“: in May donated to the Food Bank as part of a challenge by local mayors to see which city could donate the most and in June I did the VOKRA Walk for the Kitties. I forgot to donate anything in April but I realized after the fact that I did 2 donations in March (one to Rainbow Railroad that I mentioned in my first quarter check in and another one to a fundraiser by a trainer at my gym to raise money for people living on the Downtown Eastside to help them sell products that they make. So I’ve done one donation per month, on average.)), with the addition that I’ve actually learned a few things towards my “learn 12 new things” goal: cooking seafood (via an actual cooking class, see description below), French (linked to my “practice French every day this year” goal – I’m currently on a 300+ day streak!), and crocheting (this is deserves its own blog posting, which I will hopefully actually do!).

I’m 3 books behind pace on my goal of reading 23 books this year, having only read 2 books in this past quarter (How to Do the Work ((I found out after I’d gotten this book that apparently the author is somewhat problematic, which is very disappointing.)) and The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action). I’m in the middle of reading 4 different books right now ((Including one that I’m reading with a book club, reading 2-3 chapters every 2 weeks.)), so I should be able to catch up soon.

And, of course, the goal I’m kicking butt on is making new foods/beverages that I’ve never made before. By the end of the first quarter, I’d made 14 new items. As of June 30, I’ve smashed my goal of 23 by making a total of 29 new things this year!

A friend shared a recipe for miso glazed salmon and after searching far and wide for miso, I finally got to make this recipe, but I did it with mahi mahi, which I had in the freezer at the time. My miso glazed mahi mahi was delicious!

Then, since I had the miso, in typical Beth fashion, I searched for other recipes with miso and found this one for miso butter onions and I have to say, they were outstanding!

Another source of recipes this year had been my subscription to Skipper Otto. I made one Skipper Otto recipe in the first quarter and it was awesome. I tried another one this quarter, and it was not. In principle it sounded good: scallop risotto! I love scallops and I love risotto! So I ordered scallops from Skipper Otto and look how pretty they are:

The recipe was basically to make risotto and then throw the frozen scallops in at the end and cook them in the risotto. I followed the recipe, but the scallops were still frozen and they made the risotto cold. We ended up taking the scallops out and cooking them separately.

Another new recipe came from my friend Kim. I went over to her place to make a big batch of frozen burritos (that I started making last year) so that we could have frozen burritos for easy lunches. While I was there, she pulled out a big bag of dates and said “want to make date squares?”

My next new recipe came courtesy of a cooking class that I did with my friend Alicia. We went to the Northwest Culinary Academy for their Pad Thai class. This place was really cool. From the street it looks like a tiny shop, but it’s actually a big professional kitchen. They teach professional chef and pastry classes as their mainstay, but when I was chatting with the chef/teacher before class, he told me that after the initial part of the pandemic, when things were opening up again, their non-professional cooking classes became extremely popular. I asked why he thought that was and he said, “I have a theory”. I said, “Is it because everyone couldn’t go to restaurants and had to make their own food at home and learned that they had no idea how to cook?” and he was like “Yup!” Alicia and I don’t fall into that camp – we are both quite good at cooking, but we wanted to learn something new, and neither of us have learned Thai cuisine before. In this class we learned how to make Pad Thai and Green Papaya Salad, and then we got to eat the meals we made and got a little glass of wine to go with it. I’ve made Pad Thai-like things before, but it was cool to learn a more authentic recipe for it. The green papaya salad was very different than anything I’ve made before – it even involved a mortar and pestle. Both recipes had some ingredients that I don’t typically have, so I’ll have to stock up on a few new things if I want to make these at home.

I also took another cooking class this quarter. Back in the Before Times (a.k.a., Christmas 2019), Scott was going to sign us up for a cooking class at the Dirty Apron, but before we did so, the world ended. Then 3 years went by somehow. But we finally registered for a class! Dirty Apron is a fair bit more expensive than the Northwest Culinary Academy, but the class is also longer – you get an appy + glass of wine when you get there, make and eat three courses, each of which comes with a glass of wine, and then they gave us a little ice cream for dessert! For a fancy dinner, an evening of entertainment, and some new skills, it was well worth the money. We took the “Ocean Potion” class (in keeping with our interest of including more fish in our diet) and the three courses we made were:

BC mussels cooked in tomato-coconut cream:

Maple seared scallops on warm chorizo & kalamata olive ragout and pea purée (so that’s three new foods – the scallops, the ragout, and the pea puree):

Pan-roasted halibut on crushed fingerling potatoes and sauteed spinach and charred tomato vinaigrette (I’m counting this as one new-to-me recipe, as I’ve crushed potatoes before, I’ve sauteed spinach before, and the teacher made the charred tomato vinaigrette for the whole class, because it required a big blender. We got the recipe for the vinaigrette, so I plan to make it at home and then I can count it as a new food that I’ve made). This is a picture of Scott’s dish, because my halibut broke in half ‘cuz I picked it up with the wrong utensil:

The final things that I made this quarter were things I made with my sister on my recent trip to Toronto. First up is cosmic cocktails, made using Butterfly Pea Flower tea.

This tea is cool, because it’s blue but when you add lemon to it, it turns pink. So we made ice cubes with the tea, then blended them up so there was some blue slush and some blue chunks. Then we added simple syrup for sweetness and lemon juice to turn the slush pink, while the ice chunks stayed blue. And then vodka, because I was on vacation ((We made the vodka-free version for my sister’s kids.)).

I also made some hot honey because I wanted to make a thing that I had Elma on a recent trip to Penticton. I couldn’t find chilies at the store, so I got these “pencil hot” peppers because they said “extra hot” on the label. But we tried the pepper and it wasn’t hot at all, so then we added a second and it also wasn’t hot, so then we just threw some hot sauce into it (Strangely, a few days later when we tried the remaining pepper, it was super hot!).

And then the last new thing I made in the second quarter of 2023 was halloumi wrapped in phyllo (with the hot honey on top) – this is what I had in the restaurant in Penticton.

Mine wasn’t nearly as good as theirs, though I think it’s at least in part because we didn’t eat it as soon as we took it out of the oven. I think I’m going to try some other recipes ((I appear not to have saved the recipe when I made it, but it was basically cut halloumi into fingers, wrap in phyllo, brush with melted butter and bake, then serve with a drizzle of hot honey and some rosemary.)) for this dish to see if I can make it better!

Despite the fact that I’ve already completed my cooking goal, I’m going to continue making new things! But maybe I’ll also spend some time on some of my other goals 🙂

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