Hello, 2013!

Happy New Year! I love the fresh start of a new year. Enthusiasm! Ambition! Goals! Checklists! Robert was a good sport and listened to me rattle off ideas for resolutions for the year. I even typed them all up in monthly a Word document to keep us honest. One of our goals is to read more. Robert is aiming for 2 books/month while my goal is 1 book/month. We also want to read 6 books together over the course of the year. I'm calling it the Robster/Bobster Book Club. First up? 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

We also want to be better about using our cookbooks and food magazines so our goal is to make 1 new recipe each week. The recipe we tried this week was a healthy version of mac & cheese from the magazine Eating Well. It is made with whole wheat pasta and "cream sauce without the cream" -- leading me to agree with the 2 out of 5 stars that the recipe earned online. While it wasn't terrible, I think mac & cheese deserves more respect...and calories. :)

Here's a link to the recipe (after that glowing endorsement!) as well as a picture taken from the website: http://www.eatingwell.com/recipes/mac_and_cheese.html

One of my own goals is to bake something new at least once a month. We had 4 very ripe bananas so I tried a new banana bread recipe from the cookbook flour my friend Marci gave to me for my birthday. This recipe was a definite success and I highly recommend you give it a try the next time you have old bananas sitting around. It looks like I'm not the only one who gives it 5 stars:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/giadas-weekend-getaways/flours-famous-banana-bread-recipe/index.html

In non-resolution news, my friend Margaret from Ohio State visited us the past couple of days. She plays horn and is headed to Key West for a gig. It was wonderful catching up with her and she and Abigail hit it off right away. Abby was particularly entertained by Margaret singing Beatles songs. :) Although you can't tell from this picture, she smiled and laughed at Margaret quite a bit. Thanks so much for visiting!