it’s time, once again, to get wrapped up in the fervor of the season and make resolutions we will probably never keep. and although i’ve only actually kept one (to walk more and take the bus less), it’s still not a bad idea to reflect on the past year and think about what we can do for ourselves and others to make this new year the best yet. so without further ado, here’s what i’m looking forward to changing in my life in 2009:

be a better grocery shopper
have you ever heard of the method of shopping around the borders of the grocery store? that way, you hit the fruits and veggies dairy and meat counter, but skip the snacks, soda and other preservative-laden junk. yeah, i don’t do that. i rarely have a balanced collection of food in the fridge, and it’s time to fix that.

cook more seafood
fish is great, but i only know a few simple recipes. i’m slowly getting over my fear of screwing it up (and making the apartment stink for days afterward), but i need to kick it up and experiment with different flavors and ingredients.

eat at thai x-ing
i keep hearing legends of how great this restaurant is, but i still haven’t experienced it first hand. thai x-ing is basically a basement on the edge of NW DC where one guy cooks everything and there’s only one table. you have to call hours beforehand just for pickup so he has time to get to your order. we must go.

bake a bastilla
bastilla is a traditional moroccan dish with layers of chicken, eggs, almonds and a ton of fragment spices like turmeric and ginger, wrapped in dough and topped with cinnamon and sugar. it’s been on my recipe list for months now.

a few blog-specific resolutions:

post more often
i’m not setting a number for myself, but i want to get a couple of recipes in each week, along with at least one post a week on techniques, equipment or anything else i can offer (advice, cookbook reviews, etc).

actually learn how to use the settings on my camera
i know the best way to learn about photography is to practice, but i also know my camera probably has a ton of handy features that could speed up the learning process. it’s time to figure out how to take pictures in my low-light kitchen so i’m not limited to the few hours of daylight i have after work to bake.

all recipes will be in american and metric measurements
this is a simple one. and with a new baking scale, i’ll probably actually keep this one!

check out more resolutions from luke at cookography and nick at macheesemo. what are you looking forward to in 2009? any resolutions?

it’s officially the new year and i’m officially behind schedule already! after spending a week in the unseasonable warmth of the great northeast, i’m back home, a few christmas presents (baking toys) richer and watching a law and order: svu marathon, trying to figure out how many hours i’ll be spending in the kitchen this weekend. i’ve got some incredible butter and bacon filled treats coming soon, but as it’s the new year, i thought i would give you something that’s at least a little bit healthy (i use that term very loosely). i’ve actually had this post saved as a draft for a few months now but it’s perfect for any season. hope you had a great new year!

for a few months straight in college, my roommates and i would make spanakopita just about every other day. it’s one of the simplest recipes around and it usually disappears in a matter of minutes. if you want to “class up” spanakopita for a party, here’s an equally easy and delicious recipe that guests can grab and go. you can also do what the girl and i did and just eat about 50 of them for dinner. the puff pastry crisps up perfectly and the feta gives it a great bite.

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merry christmas and happy chanukah from pete bakes! i hope you’re having a happy holiday, and if you’re not too cookied out yet, i hope you make your family some of these cinnamon crackle cookies. they go perfectly with a cup of cocoa or coffee after a long day of entertaining, and might just cause your guests to go back and reward you with a few more gifts.

i’m writing this post from my parent’s house in beautiful and freezing king of prussia, pennsylvania on christmas eve, and the house is bursting at the seams with cookies. my mom bakes 18 (seriously) different types of cookies every year. so yeah, i’ll be coming back with some new recipes.

the citrus and the cinammon work together perfectly, and although they literally crackle into a million pieces when you bite down, it’s nothing a quick dunk in a big mug of cocoa won’t fix. speaking of cookies, i hear some pitzels and pressed almond tuiles calling my name right now, so i’ll just say have a safe and delicious holiday!

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sometimes the payoff for a recipe truly is worth all the trouble.

there i was, saturday morning, 8 am, ready for a full day of baking. it’s been harder and harder to bake during the week, so i’ve taken to making 4 or 5 things on saturday and sunday to keep up. i had gone grocery shopping the night before so i wouldn’t have to run back out into the freezing cold for supplies and had even prepared the brioche dough the night before so it would be ready to work with in the morning. with a fresh cup of instant coffee (i know, i know, instant, ew) in hand, i set to work on the almond cream. and that’s when things went south.

almond paste can be really tough to work with - one second it’s rock solid, the next second it’s oily and crumbling apart in your hands. so after putting all the ingredients in a mixer, i ended up with a beautiful almond cream, full of small shards of rock-solid almond paste that just wouldn’t break up. i tossed that batch to gave it another shot, but had the bright idea of microwaving the almond paste for 30 seconds so it would break apart more easily. the result? burned funky smelling almond paste. i thought maybe i could salvage it, so i added the other ingredients, but adding cold ingredients to warm almond paste just made the almond paste’s resolve stronger. it became a burned mass of almond rock at the bottom of the mixer. failure.

at that point i had run out of almond paste and the thought of going out into the cold for an $8 tube of the stuff made me want to scratch the whole thing. but i bundled up, got to safeway, and after 20 minutes of searching (why do they keep rearranging the aisles?) found the almond paste, got back home and proceeded to make a wonderfully smooth delicious cream that worked perfectly. good thing too, i was ready to toss my mixer out the window.

then i realized i didn’t have enough flour to make all the other things i wanted to make that day and had to go back to the store AGAIN. but that’s another story.

the brioche was completely amazing and tasted better than i could have imagined. the combination of almond and orange gives it incredibly bright flavors and the bread itself is rich enough that it could be dessert. the instructions said to invert the brioche onto a plate after it came out of the oven but didn’t specify whether it should be served that way. in retrospect, it should have been pretty obvious to just flip it again onto another plate so the topping was, you know, on top, but the golden caramelized sugar coated bottom made me think twice.

one more thing: this is my 50th post! i know that’s hardly a milestone compared to the work so many other bloggers have accomplished, but as i began writing this post, i kept thinking about why i started pete bakes in the first place. when i launched the blog in april, it was a sort of test for myself to see if i could keep baking and writing on a regular basis. i wanted the experience to push me to try new techniques and recipes and still have it be fun. i never expected to get comments or responses aside from the friends and family who followed it.

i also could not have expected the level of talent, creativity and generosity of the food blogging community. if you’re reading this, you are the reason this blog exists - because what would all of these experiences mean without someone to share them with?

so if you’ve ever left a comment, or written an email (i try to respond to all!) or just tried a recipe, THANK YOU! it humbles me to find out that after being inspired by all of you who cook and bake and share it with the world that i could have some small impact as well. THANKS!

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