2018: Thoughts on the Year Ahead

Happy New Year!! I’m having a rather slow start to the year, hence this post being a good few days into 2018.

I’ve never quite understood people who can get started on their resolutions full force on January 1st. Aside from the inevitable New Year’s Day hangover, I always find it takes me at least a few days to settle back into normality and routine.

So, here we are, with a bit of a chatty ramble rather than a recipe. There’s plenty of time for those, my friends!

Any long-time readers will know that I don’t have the best track record with plans for this space. So, here are some hopes for the year ahead – who knows if they’ll all go to plan. Life happens, and I think I’ve *finally* started to accept that the blog needs to ebb & flow alongside it.

That said, here’s what I’d like to achieve this year:

Blog more consistently

Feel free to laugh out loud at this one ;). I’ve been straight-up terrible at this for a looong time, flitting between posting 3 times a week then not at all for 5 months. I’m hoping once a week is achievable, but honestly a year with no multiple-month breaks will be an improvement.

On the plus side, I *finally* qualified as an Actuary in December which means NO MORE STUDYING!! (and most importantly, more time for blogging!).

Keep things simple

I updated my ‘About‘ page recently, and said that I’m leaning towards easy meals made with simple, flavourful ingredients. I still love experimenting with extravagant desserts and dinner party dishes, but midweek meals that are quick and bursting with flavour is where the real magic of cooking lies.

When I do delve into more adventurous cooking, I might share the experience as a more casual ‘look what I made/look at this disaster’ (the latter being more likely, #RealLife) type post rather than a recipe.

Be more helpful

Bit of a vague one, huh? I love cooking (erm, obviously…) and I genuinely believe that anybody can be good at it. My reader survey way back in July highlighted that a lot of you struggle for inspiration or aren’t confident combining flavours and cooking without a recipe.

For me the true joy is being able to knock together a good meal without a recipe, so alongside sharing my favourite recipes I really want to provide tips and ideas to help you get there.

I’m not sure exactly what that’s going to look like, but I’m thinking ingredient guides with info on different ways to eat/cook particular ingredients, plus what other flavours they go well with. I’m also hoping to make my newsletter (ha, remember that!) more helpful, with info on seasonal ingredients and quick tips & ideas.

Improve my photography

The styling & photography side of things is still something I absolutely love, and one of my favourite unintended side-effects of starting this blog. I really want to work on improving this and seeing where I can take it. I’ve had the privilege of working with a few awesome brands to create recipes and images for them and this is something I’d love to build on.

In the meantime, I guess it’s time to up my insta game!

As always, if there’s anything you’d like to see, or if you’ve got any ideas about how I can make this a more useful resource, please do let me know. I’m all ears!