Takin' on a challenge

Flipping through my new Food & Wine 2010 cookbook (which is awesome, by the way), I found myself pointing to recipes and saying, "Oh, that looks tasty! Buuut I would never make it." Then I thought, "Well, that's silly. Why not?" I tend to get stuck in ruts, only making things within my cooking comfort zone. I want to break free of that! To make things that I typically wouldn't make! To challenge myself!

So this is my attempt at that. It's my small scale Julie & Julia-esque challenge that will help me to broaden my cooking horizons.

Every week during the year 2011, I will make one new recipe from the Food & Wine 2010 cookbook and document it on this blog. I will post the recipes every Wednesday. And hopefully by the end of 2011, I will be a much more well-rounded cook!

I randomly selected 52 numbers (one for each week of the year) between 1 and 365 (the number of pages in the cookbook) from random.org. I then flipped to each of the 52 pages in the cookbook and picked the recipe on each page (if more than one was listed) that I would be least likely to make. I wrote them down and sorted the recipes by season (salads in summer, squash in fall, baked goods in winter, etc.) and compiled my list.

I'll post the first P&TC recipe on January 5th, 2011 and the last on December 28th, 2011. I won't share the entire list ahead of time, but here are a handful of the recipes I will make in 2011:

Sake-steamed halibut with ginger and cabbage

Minted watermelon popsicles

Greek baked pasta

Chicken sofrito

Bacon, onion and rye bread stuffing

Yogurt-zucchini bread with walnuts

Spinach and pork wontons