A Look Back At Cooking in 2009

My gosh, looking back at the cooking done in our kitchen in 2009 it is difficult to say where the focus was. Home food preservation was definitely one of the priorities with canning coming out in the lead. There were a lot of interesting foods coming out of the kitchen as well. Not so surprisingly more comfort foods and soups were made somewhat reflective of a year filled with not the best weather and a slower economy. It did become the year of the mixes and I even shared a neat way using a mason jar with your blender when making homemade mixes, sauces and dips. Over all pork was the central meat of the year thanks to the H1N1 misinformation resulting in pork dropping to rock bottom prices. However this year we did a lot more experimenting with wild game such as venison, goose and moose. It also became a year for experimenting with making gourmet tea and coffee drinks at home. One of the most interesting things we did as a couple in the kitchen was hold a contest called He Said/She Said during the month of October. It was a lot of fun!

The biggest change in our kitchen in 2009 was the return of my beloved garden specifically the herb bed. While we only put in two beds rather late along with our container garden is was wonderful being able to go out and pick an abundance of fresh produce minutes before serving. I'm so looking forward to the changes that will come with the garden expansioun this year that will see the growing space more than double!

The second biggest change in our kitchen was my downdraft system was finally hooked up. This is a necessary component to use the indoor grill cartridge on my Jenn-Air® range. We moved here in June of 2007 but plumbing issues quickly overtook our lives. I kid you not after dealing with over 3-inches of water in our house several times, major plumbing reconstuction including digging up lawns to run new lines and using a porta-johnny for a week I hope you understand when I say I really don't want to see my plumber anytime soon! Oh and the plumbing issues were not quick or cheap to fix either but they were quite disruptive. So the downdraft system kept getting pushed back mainly because we had to drill through an 18-inch concrete wall. Since we grill outside year round it just ended up not being a high priority.

During 2009 we continued on our eco-friendly kitchen trend removing as much plasticware and disposable wraps from the kitchen as possible. At the end of 2009 we are about 85% plastic free when it comes to food storage containers. moved away entirely from buying any pre-ground meats other than what comes from our bulk meat purchases. We also returned to making buttermilk, ricotta cheese and sour cream at home to further reduce food containers coming into the house.

Overall 2009 was a wonderful year in our kitchen but 2010 promises to be even better!

Bon Appétit!

Garden Gnome
©2006-2009