Heading into a new decade, Family Eats is ready to take a hold of and follow through on a set of new resolutions. But, before we get to that, let’s take a brief look at how well we did on last year’s resolutions. As a refresher, you can read last year’s post at:Family Eats 2010 New Years Resolutions
1. Slow Down – We resolved to sit down to dinner every night and to focus on making some great meals in our own kitchen. While this wasn’t much of a stretch for our family – heck, we do that anyway – we made sure that the children were involved in the kitchen – planning, preparing and consuming – in an effort to build a great foundation for their futures.
2. Cut Your Meat Consumption – Both Greg and I grew up in meat-and-potatoes families, so at first it felt a bit strange having a meal without the requisite meat on the plate; but we did it. To that end, we included a meatless meal every Monday on the Family Eats Weekly Menu. In the process, we ended up trying new recipes that we might not otherwise try if we were solely satisfy on our meat-eating genes. We also diversified our food choices . . . which leads us to our next resolution . . .
3. Diversify Food Choices – Part and parcel with our Meatless Mondays resolution, we sought to mix things up a bit. Destined to lessen the number of times I said, “I’m tired of making the same thing for dinner,” I sought out new recipes to introduce to our family. Some of the new ones included:, You’ll Never Know Chili, Lemony Mushroom Risotto, and Quinoa Croquettes. I also dove head first into creating some authentic Asian food, with my entry in Project Food Blog on Food Buzz.
4. Start a Garden – We did, and what a success. Our 13’ by 5’ garden plot produced everything from strawberries and tomatoes, to beans, cucumbers, kale, lettuce, pumpkins and more. Not only did the family enjoy planting, but harvesting, and then eating, this year, we heard things said we had never heard before: Can I go pick the tomatoes for our pasta sauce? Is this lettuce from the garden? Or, Can we make a dinner from the garden?
5. Compost – Our backyard composting turned out to be very successful.
While I never desired to venture too close to the festering pile of compost, I happily added our compost-worthy waste to the kitchen bin. Then, Greg enthusiastically hauled it out back and added to his brew. The result was some great fertilizer for the garden. As well, our garbage bin for truck pick-up was virtually non-existent. With a year of composting behind us, the kids are in the habit of throwing their garbage into the proper place – recyclable, garbage, and compost.
6. Buy Local – Of all the 2010 resolutions, this is the one we could have put more effort into. For those items we didn’t have growing in our backyard, most of our food was purchased at a grocery store. On occasion, I did venture to the farmers market (although I did this much more frequently in 2010 than I did in 2009). Usually my farmers market visits were dubbed as an adventure for the kids. They enjoyed eating the samples, stopping for honey sticks, and begging for bread – which we never bought because we bake all our bread. Perhaps the turning point for me was when I participated in the Marin Farmers Market Local Thanksgiving Challenge – which we won! That experience made me enjoy the farmers market experience much more than I had in the past – and, I even stopped to talk with the farmers a bit. I’m ready to continue on my Buy Local journey.
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7. Incorporate a Low Carbon Diet into Your Lifestyle – We began to compost, bought bulk foods at the grocery store (less packaging), ate more leftovers, paid more attention to portion size, and yes, we even changed our light bulbs. In the process we cut down on our waste – less uneaten and spoiled food in the fridge, less garbage to drag out to the curb, and less untouched food on our plates. While I didn’t measure our carbon output, we are confident that we are well below the 20 tons per capita of carbon dioxide per year.
A quick recap of our 2010 resolutions reveals that we didn’t do too badly. Now that we have a full 12 months under out belt, these resolutions are common practice in our household – still a challenge, but not unattainable. While there are a few items we need a little bit of work on, we’re ready for our next set of resolutions. Read our 2011 Resolutions here.
