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What Are Your Food Resolutions?
By: Kelly Martin
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At the beginning of the year it’s easy to think about things we’d like to change. It’s kind of an American habit to look at what we dislike about our lives and make plans to change. The intentions are good – but usually lose steam shortly in the new year.
According to statisticbrain.com, 45% of Americans make a habit of making resolutions, 17% make them infrequently and 38% say they never make them. What’s more interesting is 24% say they never succeed and/or fail on their resolution each year.
Included in the top ten resolutions for 2014 are three resolutions regarding health: #1 is to lose weight, #5 is staying fit and healthy and #7 is to quit smoking.
I don't normally make resolutions. Although, every year I think I’d like to get more organized in the kitchen – to find more interesting recipes, stop cooking the same things over and over and to quit feeling like cooking is a chore.
I was talking with a co-worker about an interview she had seen recently with a woman who gave suggestions for pre-prepping slow cooker meals. Her suggestion was to prep your recipes in a plastic bag and simply pull them out of the freezer, put them in the slow cooker and dinner’s on!
What a great idea, I thought. But there are some obvious issues.
What am I going to put in the bags? Do I have the organizational skills to pull this off? Would it be worth spending a few hours on a Sunday afternoon to be able to have meals ready?
In doing some research, I came across a blog from a woman, who (in 2008) made a New Year’s Resolution to use her slow cooker every single day for a year. She did, and blogged about it.
She has 365 entries on this blog; with links for recipes and other ways she used her slow cooker. There are some very interesting recipes on this blog, just about anything you can think of, including main dishes, soups, candied walnuts, fudge and several desserts.
There are also some entries that will confuse you a bit, such as using your slow cooker as a foot bath and how to ‘how to make CrockPot crayons’ and ‘holiday ornaments.’ I also found the ‘instant mash potato’ and ‘hardboiled egg’ entries a little unusual, but it showed me that with a little creativity you could do a lot in a slow cooker.
If you’re not a creative person, never fear – she published a book with 365 recipes, one for every day of the year.
So, if you want to change it up a bit this year, here are some ideas for change. If nothing else, maybe you'll find a few good recipes that you can enjoy.