Oh hai.

Yeah, I totally abandoned this project when MoFo was over. I suck. In my defense, I started working full time, so I was getting home needing to clean and cook after having been at work for 8 hours. It was a bit tiring. I'm off for the holidays now, and the job is still only temporary, but I'll try to be better with this in 2010. I also haven't kept up with the few blogs I had been following, so I've got about a thousand posts to read. I should've started this at the beginning of my holiday.

Speaking of 2010 - HAPPY NEW YEAR! HAPPY NEW DECADE!

Here are my food-related resolutions:
1) Keep up with this blog.
2) Use my cookbooks more often - I might need to give myself another cookbook challenge. I just bought 5 new ones (one of which is by the person I'm testing for [see below]). What I need to do is flip through all of my cookbooks and make a list of the recipes I want to try. Then, DO IT!
3) Update my food porn - I probably have 100+ pictures on my camera right now. I just couldn't be bothered uploading everything. I only hope that I can remember what everything is.
4) Make use of more of my kitchen gadgets - I have loads, but some of them I hardly use. I also keep getting more. But at least I've already made a start, of sorts. I made cheese toasties for lunch with the sammich plates on my combo waffle iron. And I've got hoppin' John going in my new slow cooker (Xmas present from Sam).
5) Be a better tester - I'm testing for a cookbook that should be coming out around March (yeah, quick turn-around). So far, I've only tested one thing (well, 2 if you count the accompanying dip). I need to keep up with the posts so I don't let Alicia down.
6) Eat better food - This will hopefully come with #2, but I need to keep on using fresh ingredients, eating more veg (and maybe more fruit, now that I have something to make smoothies with), eating less processed stuff and fatty stuff, and making more from scratch. This will also help with #4, since I'll be getting more use out of my bread maker and my new bread knife.

Other resolutions:
1) Kinda food related, but not exactly: Keep up with the cleaning - Wash the dishes within a day of using them, keep the bathroom clean so I can take a bath every once in a while, and hoover at least once a week (instead of only when people are coming over if I can be bothered).
2) Get a permanent full-time job - I kinda have to wait until I get my leave to remain sorted (yeah, I still don't know about that), but once I get that back, I'm gonna keep applying for jobs until I get one.
3) Keep up with exercising - I paid a ton for my gym membership so I could get free yoga and pilates, so I should actually go to those classes. I also want to start doing aquaerobics and/or swimming.

Oh, and to answer Mo's question from my last blog post: A crumpet is basically a single piece of bread-type thing. They're cooked on a griddle rather than baked, and they have more baking soda (or is it powder?) so they have holes in the top. English muffins generally don't have the holes, and they're baked, and they're usually split apart (unlike crumpets). Does that help?