2011 food challenges

It’s becoming clearer and clearer that I am not meeting my food challenges each year. Perhaps it’s because I’m so impulsive and easily bored?

I decide on a few recipes and key ingredients for the year then get distracted by some other shiny new things!

Regardless, I’m not going to stop setting myself these challenges even if they’re not always met.

I did a pretty dismal job in 2010, achieving only 9 out of 20 and still needing to blog 6 of those recipes.
I’ve decided to incorporate some of the unfinished challenges from previous years. Not all of them, but just those that still strike a chord with me somehow.

There were some dishes I thought I should attempt too. For instance every blogger worth their cyberspace has posted macarons, but then that’s kind of boring because people surfing the net for good recipe ideas don’t want to find seven hundred macaron recipes and nothing else.

Regardless, here are my 2011 Food Challenges.

Cook with new ingredients
Items or flavours I have never used before
Loomi (dried Persian limes)
Purslane (pigweed)
Shito (West African chilli condiment)
Smoked Ghanese Fish
Strawberry Gum

Learn about:
Techniques, cuisines or types of dishes I wish to master
Granola Chocolate, Cashew & Honey Granola
Iced Teas (& cooking with tea) Early Grey & Rhubarb Jam, Strawberry, Vanilla & Rose Iced Tea
Smoking Smoked Mackerel
Candies & Treats Passionfruit Truffles, Marzipan & Grand Marnier Truffles
Native Australian Ingredients Finger Lime Syrup, Oysters w Lime Caviar

Cook coveted recipes:
Recipes that I have scrapbooked over the years but never made
Pozole Rojo (red hominy stew) COMPLETE
Baby Potatoes w Blood Sausage & Crisp Parsley
Castagnaccio (Italian chestnut cake)
Česneková Polévka (Czech garlic soup) COMPLETE
Cha Traop Dot (Cambodian smoky eggplant & pork)

Finally attempt:
Dishes that have seemed too complicated to attempt before
Singapore Chilli Crab COMPLETE
Zupa Ogórkowa (Polish pickle soup) COMPLETE
Coeur a la Crème (French cream desserts) COMPLETE
Monkey Bread
Assam Laksa (Malay sour fish soup)

Invent recipes for:
Recipes I have dreamed up, seen or eaten and wish to replicate in my own way
Francesinha (Portuguese sandwich)
Green Papaya/Mango Salad
Apricot & Ganache Truffles
Musk Ice Cream
Adaptation of a Noma recipe

Taste / buy:
Market goodies that I just gots to ‘ave
Miracle fruit tablets
Violet essence BOUGHT
Sorrel COOKED WITH IT
Lightbox
New camera BOUGHT

Dine out at:
Restaurants I want to try at some point in the year
Ash Street Cellar VISITED
Attica
Mamasita VISITED
Sepia VISITED
Tomislav VISITED

Anna's AU Food Trend Predictions
(announced via Twitter)
#1 fast food goes gourmet with haute cuisine burgers, hotdogs & popcorn etc
#2 hot sauce, the Lousiana kind. ccrryysstaaaaaaalll!
#3 locavorism, foraging and native Aussie ingredients. bring on the finger limes I say!
#4 salt-sweet desserts, like bacon chocolates and salted caramels
#5 more apple & pear cider on drinks lists. yay!
#6 Nordic ingredients like elderflower & lingon
#7 smoke, whether it be smoked meat, salt, butter or chocolate
#8 choripan, Argentina's fab chorizo hot dogs
#9 Latin American cuisines, esp Mexico, Argentina, Peru & Brazil
#10 lovely tongue on more menus