Happy 2014!

I knew I hadn't posted much in 2013, but it was a shock to find out that there was only one single post at the beginning of the 2013.

Let me start again, wishing the accidental viewer (as at this point any follower must have given up on me) a Happy New Year!  Followed by stating  the same resolutions as last year's. I have a scatter gun approach to resolutions, I figured out that if I have a ton of  them, I am bound to get some done, even if only by accident.

Starting with food,  I want to feed my family good food (most of the time),  increase my children's exposure to different tastes and my cooking repertoire.  With my Brazilian and Japanese background, and my father's curiosity about food, we grew up eating a variety of food. We though nothing of eating sashimi, carpaccio and quibe cru. Or feijoada and dobradinha. The first 3 involve raw fish or meat.  Feijoada has pigs ears and trotters (though my mother didn't use them) and dobradinha is made with cow's stomach.

That's something I didn't manage to pass on to my kids, a curiosity and liking for new food. My daughter has a potential which hasn't been encouraged much, while my son is suspicious of anything he hasn't eaten before. I am aware his attitute won't change overnight. In fact, we are in a campaign to get my son to be more adventurous for years. It is slow, requires patience but there's been progress and it is rewarding to see it.

I'll tell you about it sometime, but for the time being, let me share this year's strategy. I am trying to plan the menu in advance. Menu planned in the weekend, weekly shop on Monday.

While it is as easy to write the menu anywhere, I am using Ali Edwards' menu planner. It is simple, has slots for fruit/veg/desserts and new food. It is supposed to be for dinner but has enough space to squeeze lunch and dinner in it.

Increasingly I am using recipes I find in the internet and save in a pinterest board. I have been doing this for the last year and the only drawback is to be referring to my iPad while cooking, so this year, I am also printing the recipes and keeping them in a folder. So my folder would have a printout of the menu planner, then printouts of any recipe I am going to try during the week.  I am hoping to try at least one new dish every week.

Here's the list of recipes I or one of my collaborators tried so far: Pinterest board with recipes tried. There's real comments in it, which either I or my friends wrote.

Of the things I tried so far in 2014, the spaghetti with olives, tomatoes and feta is my favourite. It's more of a summer recipe but after coming back from visiting my family in Brazil, I was still in the mood for something light and fresh.

Hope you enjoy it!