One Year of Recipes

It's been one year since I started this blog with the goal of trying new recipes and cooking healthier foods.  Here are the stats on what I've cooked in the past year.

The blog includes 67 different dishes, including 55 new recipes I had never tried before starting the blog.  I've used recipes from a variety of sources, focusing on my favorite cookbooks:
    - The Vegan Table by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau (43 recipes)
    - Vegan Cooking for Carnivores by Roberto Martin (11 recipes)
    - The Joy of Vegan Baking by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau (3 recipes)
    - Party Vegan by Robin Robertson (2 recipes)
    - Mayim's Vegan Table by Mayim Bialik (1 recipe)
    - Runner's World magazine/website (2 recipes)
    - my own recipes and creations (4 recipes)

A few of my favorite recipes (Pad Thai, Chana Masala, Cinnamon French Toast, and variations on Tofu Scramble [1, 2, 3]) are meals I cook on a regular basis, and I've made several of the other new recipes multiple times.  I've also incorporated many of the recipes' cooking tips and flavor combinations into my own homemade creations - sometimes with great results (for example, the sauce in my Grilled Tofu with Peanut Soy Sauce), and sometimes it doesn't turn out as well.

I've discovered several great new breakfast foods, like Whole Wheat Waffles with Maple-Berry Syrup, the Not-Just-For-Breakfast Banana Split, and Wheat Pancakes.

I still haven't bought a nice camera.  My phone has a decent camera that works well in natural light, but I still want to get a good quality camera that allows me to play around with different exposure settings.  It would be nice to have it when I travel to new places, and for other amateur photography that I enjoy, in addition to taking food photos for blog posts.

My goal of one new recipe per week was tough to maintain, but I did it - at least on an average basis.  There were many times I made 2-3+ new recipes per week and other times I didn't make a new recipe for a couple weeks in a row, instead of consistently doing 1 new recipe every week.  The point of the blog wasn't to force myself to stick to a schedule, but rather to explore new recipes instead of always falling back on pizza and tacos.  In those terms, I think I've been successful.  I still make homemade pizza (with store-bought crust) every week, but I'm doing a much better job of cooking new foods in addition to sustaining my pizza habit.  I look forward to continuing the blog, cooking new recipes, and finding more favorite meals!