Early January is resolution time: Americans annually vow to reform their diets, exercise plans, and organize their closets. Forget all that stuff–I’m resolving to spend more time in the kitchen this year. Here are my kitchen resolutions for 2013:
- Learn to bake croissants. The holy grail of bakers everywhere, croissant dough requires laminating a block of butter inside dough by repeated folding. See baking instructor Ciril Hitz demonstrate laminated dough in this video. (And check out Hitz’s many other excellent baking videos on his YouTube channel.)
- Get rid of plastic food storage containers. Like most people, I have a motley collection of plastic food storage containers. A gift of pyrex food storage containers has given me a head start on this goal, but I’ll need an entire year to get rid of tubs stashed in the freezer and fridge. Why? I have the bad habit of microwaving things directly in the container, which provides greatest “yuk” exposure to whatever might leach out of the plastic. Going all-glass means I can microwave without risk of anything leaching into my luncheon leftovers.
- Eat more seafood. (Self explanatory, isn’t it?) Thanks to my fisherman brother, I’m making pretty good progress on this one. Speckled trout tacos, trout meuniere, and grilled redfish have all graced by table since January 1st. I’m hoping I can keep this trend going….
Bouillie 
Excellent resolutions! I have a small set of Pyrex and really want to expand it. It’s a million times better than the shoddy plastic that also lurks on my shelves. Croissants. Mmmm…
Yeah, the croissant thing is going to be a “later in 2013” endeavor, I think. But I’m tired of sub-par croissants.
Hmmmmm croissants huh…..seafood……crab croissants? Luckily my family won’t eat leftovers. We have learned to cook in batch sizes that only produces enough for 1 meal and maybe some school lunch. Nothing over 3 days old. The only thing in my freezer (besides deer sausage and pecans), are plastic containers, like milk jugs and 2 liter bottles that I freeze water in, to make ice to go on outdoor adventures. Thats cajun recycling. Makes darn good ice too. Please post the croissant results when you try. I gotta try that. I’m a terrible baker, but “ah likes da croissants”
To me, anothing more than a bar of dark chocolate or a smear of almond paste disrupts a croissant. I like flaky layers all the way to the middle, not a hunk of filling. The best ones don’t need anything in ’em. The Williams Sonoma catalog inspired me to finally tackle croissants: WS wants around $3.50/ea for frozen, bake at home croissants, and as much as $5/ea for filled ones.
RE: ice, I have drunk enough defrosted & refrozen “freezer water” that tasted like onions, plastic, or other weirdness to last me a lifetime. I pack FRESH when I go outdoors.