Foodie Resolutions 2016: Mid-year Progress Update

It’s already half-way through June, a time when I planned to touch-base with an update on my foodie goals for this year to check on my progress.

In case you missed seeing the post on my old blog, foodie resolutions came out of an article on MSN Food & Drink that outlined new things that foodies should try to do in the new year. This is the second year in a row that I’ve set these goals for myself. Although I didn’t complete them in entirety last year, I still had fun writing about them and going through the process. You can read a recap of the goals here.

With the excitement of switching jobs and finishing up school over the past couple of months, now with working on this new project and getting some of my old posts cleaned up, it turns out that I don’t have anything to report! 

That said, here are the four goals that I started with at the beginning of the year. The status on all of them is Not Started or Deferred.

1. Make homemade ravioli or pasta — step one, getting a pasta maker, was accomplished last year. Steve bought one to take to his family’s annual pierogi-making party back in April, but we have yet to do anything else with it.
2. Pressure can something — I hit a roadblock with this one. I picked out a simple recipe from The Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving for vegetable stock, which I generally make and freeze in quart containers but thought might be nice to can this time, since I’m running out of freezer space. Unfortunately, the pressure canner that was given to me needs a replacement gasket and we have yet to find one anywhere. It’s an old model, so my best bet will be to search eBay; otherwise, I may need to bite the bullet and buy a new canner rather than risk using a gasket that isn’t quite the right size.
3. Make aioli or mayonnaise — I haven’t had the opportunity to fry anything lately, so I’m deferring this one until I do. I’m thinking that homemade fish and chips with malt vinegar or lemon-caper aioli will be my plan to complete this goal. Yum.
4. Make wine — Steve and I made a batch of hard cider at the end of last year that by the time we bottled it fermented into a dry cider that I was afraid almost turned into vinegar (fortunately, it didn’t.) Winemaking was going to be our next experiment, but I decided that I wanted to spend my money on more beer to stock up for the fall and winter before I jumped into trying my hand at making wine.

New Goal: make homemade kombucha — I have become obsessed with kombucha since trying it again earlier this year. Unfortunately, at $2.99 a bottle at Wegmans for the one brand that I like, the obsession has added up over time. I did some initial research on kombucha homebrew kits to see how hard the process would be. As it turns out, it seems pretty easy — and much like making beer.

Are you still on-track with your goals for this year? Let me know what you set out to accomplish and how you’re doing in a comment.