New Year, New Food: Cooking Through Magnolia Table In 1 Year

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For most, the New Year evokes an emotion of excitement and anticipation mixed with an ever so slight feeling of dread. Dread of the question, “what is your resolution this year?”. Statistically, only a slight percentage of those who claim to start a New Year’s resolution actually complete one. While I have never jumped fully into the adoption of a New Year’s resolution, there is one goal I have always longed to complete: to cook through an entire cookbook in one year. And this year, that goal is applied to cooking through Magnolia Table Vol 1.

Background

As a child, I loved to cook. Some of my earliest memories were learning recipes from my family members. Even today, I love the creative process of cooking, of trying something new, of asking someone their favorite part of the meal, of inviting a friend to my table, of sitting back and enjoying a fabulous dinner complete with an utterly full stomach. Coming from a family of six, food was an experience to share and from a young age, I learned to make large portions to feed the home army. Now in a family of two, Charlie and I spend many evenings eating leftovers, as trying to retrain the mind when it comes to cooking for many has proven to be quite the challenge. Seeing this, we began “Sunday Dinners” to have friends and family and their friends into our home every other Sunday to share a meal together and put back into practice cooking for a crowd.

Because of my love for cooking, I was introduced some years ago to the movie Julie & Julia which is based on a woman (Julie) cooking through Julia Child’s cookbook, Mastering The Art of French Cooking, in one year. This movie soon became one of my favorites and ever since, has ignited a desire to cook through an entire cookbook in a year. Hence comes the title of this post: New Year, New Food: Cooking Through Magnolia Table In 1 Year.

Magnolia Table Vol 1

When scouring cookbooks to decide on which to embark through, I decided on the Magnolia Table Cookbook Vol. 1 for a number of reasons. First, when writing the book, Joanna’s purpose was to celebrate and highlight the “art of togetherness”. Her mission was to share food that was dear to her heart, while celebrating a spirit of hospitality. This can certainly be seen and proven through the serving sizes of most of her dishes (again cue the Sunday dinners and abundant leftovers). But in as such, I very much admire and desire to join her in practicing the “art of togetherness” and am excited to do so through her book.

Secondly, on a much more trivial note, when flipping through her cookbook, both Charlie and I saw recipes that we were excited to eat! While we enjoy being adventurous, there is a point at which you have to consider if you are excited to try the recipes you will be cooking through.

New Year, New Food: Cooking Through Magnolia Table In 1 Year — Magnolia Table

And lastly, the Magnolia Table showcases not only a lovely variety of recipes, but also a good quantity. With 139 recipes spread over 52 weeks in the year, I will tackle 2.67 recipes a week, therefore some weeks will have 2 and some 3. Over the course of the year, I will not be working directly through the cookbook from beginning to end. I forever am finding a recipe that needs only 1 Tbsp of tomato paste or parsley and then end up wasting the rest. To prevent waste and reduce cost, I have tried to strategically plan each recipe with more unusual ingredients near another that might use the same. While every week may not include a meal complete with a main course and side dishes, I will communicate what I have paired with each Magnolia recipe in my weekly article. Additionally, I look forward to sharing with you each week who we are able to enjoy these meals with in our home as we tackle this cooking adventure.

So, I hope that this year you will join us on the journey to expanding our culinary palettes, practicing the “art of togetherness”, and overall signing up for a new adventure as we work our way through the Magnolia Table. To download our Cooking Through Magnolia Table Guide that catalogs and organizes the recipes we will be going through each week, just fill out the form below!

Happy cooking!