Happy New Year!!!
New year. New project.
Jarrod (my culinary arts student) and I are collaborating on a big annual project cooking our way through the Magnolia Table cookbook by Joanna Gaines. It might seem like an unconventional cookbook but we chose it for two reasons, 1) we own it. That might seem intuitive, but I had considered purchasing another cookbook and Jarrod suggested let's use one we already own. And, 2) We chose the Magnolia Table because she shares recipes that are 'tastes like home', recipes that speak to our family's heart and stomach without any, dare I say, foo foo recipes. Sure, we are up for trying new things and testing our palettes but we just aren't in to way out there recipes.
While I hope to be able to cook through the cookbook within a year, I'm pretty sure our train will be derailed a time or two, but I am hoping to make quite the dent in re-creating as many recipes from the Magnolia Table, as possible.
Today, I am sharing our January 2021 menu that, if executed, will give us a giant headstart. Here is our approach to cooking our way through the Magnolia Table cookbook:
Plan a monthly menu. I had gotten out of the habit of creating a monthly meal plan, rather I had been making a weekly plan on the fly. Planning monthly, I can see much easier places on a calendar that I might be able to try a new recipe. It will also help me keep track of the recipes that we complete. Planning is key to execution.
Feel free to replace ingredients, make simple changes to the recipes, to suit our tastes. There are a handful of recipes that have ingredients I doubt my whole family will eat. Therefore, rather than skip that recipe I am giving ourselves permission to make them our own. Joanna even suggests in her introduction, "I want you to feel inspired to personalize these recipes and adjust them as you need for your family's tastes. If you don't like onions, take them out!..." Here's a for instance: For her Quick Orange-Walnut Sweet Rolls it calls for crescent rolls. Jarrod and I are going to replace that with bread dough and adding heavy cream before baking. Rolling out bread dough is almost just as quick as opening a couple cans of crescent rolls and I know will taste way better.
Taking notes. My goal is to make this cookbook Magnolia Table's and ours, as well. We'll make notes directly in the cookbook of changes we make/made to the recipes, possible changes for next time (maybe with a post it), write what worked with recipe - and what didn't, and include our personal reviews: is the recipe a keeper, just so-so, make again soon!
Take photos of our creations and blog about it. I, of course, am hoping to keep up with photo-taking (and maybe improve on my foodie photos this year) and blogging about our experience with the recipe and this project.
I am super excited about our year-long project and can't wait to try some new scrumptious recipes.