Behold Amanda Hesser’s New York Times Essential Cookbook, the monster of a cookbook I’ve been eyeing for the past few months, brought to Jared and me this Christmas from the man in red. Woo hoo! I am beyond excited to crack it open and get started. And with 932 pages of Times recipes from the past 150ish years, I think I’ll be busy for a while.
But I do so love a project, and to make things a little more interesting, I’ve devised a plan to cook my way through this thing Julie and Julia-style (so Katrina and NYT-style?). Here’s what I’m thinking: Every week, I’m going to attempt at least two recipes from the book: one cooking and one baking. I’m thinking that aiming for two a week versus one a day allows some much-needed wiggle room for other culinary adventures. I realize that given the number of recipes in this book and my expected rate of completion, this NYT experiment will last well into 2012. But it’s all about the journey, right? It might be a long trip, but we’ll have good eats along the way.
So what do you think? And would you like to join me? Maybe there’s another book you’d like to cook your way through, or maybe the NYT Essential Cookbook is right up your alley, too. Whatever your 2011 cooking plan might be, I’d love to share the road. Let’s roll up our sleeves, pull on the ol’ apron and get down to business. This is going to be fun. Stay tuned!
XO,
Katrina
[…] have found a winner. Hidden nearly 700 pages deep, in the “Cookies and Candy” section of my NYT Cookbook, there lies an incredibly simple, back-to-basics type of recipe that sounded like just the kind of […]