Kitchen Goals for January 2011

First let me write about meeting goals last month.  One goal for December was to make a batch of yogurt each time I bought raw milk which ends up being weekly.  I'd send a quart or two to college with my daughter so she could have her sprouted grain cereal and dried fruit with yogurt for breakfast.  Each time we or some of our friends visited her college town or she came home, I replenished her frig with yogurt and raw milk.   My husband likes to take yogurt in his lunch but he likes his with fruit. So each time I made yogurt, I also made 12 little 4 oz jelly jars of Fruit on the Bottom yogurt for his lunch.  Only about half made it to his lunch box because it's so good!
 
Last month also included some dabbling with sourdough and I'm still struggling to make it happen.  However, I did make a couple batches of flatbread for Christmas.

Plastic containers are so handy to have on hand but with all the talk about the xenohormones and chemicals that leach into our food, (read all about it here) I've tried to eliminate many of them from regular use by using lots of different sizes of canning jars and buying a couple sets of glass containers which I love!

It's easy to talk about things that should be so in my kitchen but when things get busy, it's also easy to try making choices at the store that may reflect at least some of my goals.  But, when things get hectic, sometimes I panic to get food on the table and all my goals go right out the window for a meal or two.  And, everyone at my house is not on board with my healthy diet plans so if he goes to the store, there's no telling what he'll bring home! 
So, when I think about goals for my kitchen in January, there are a few things I'd like to tackle.

1. Purging my kitchen of most or all refined, processed foods.
2. Prepare for a 3 week eating plan to kick start the new year.
3. Plan and prepare ahead of time so I don't get caught off guard when I get busy.  One aspect of this goal is to make breakfast bars weekly because they are a healthy snack that is easy to grab when you need something to tide you over until mealtime or as a quick breakfast with yogurt.
4. Baking bread at least once a week including flatbread and /or crackers.
5. Make 24 Fruit on the Bottom yogurt instead of 12 each time because we love it, too!

You can read about other whole food advocates' Kitchen Goals for January 2011 at Kelly's blog.