2011 was a great year for us! I harvested another 100 pounds of vegetables from my tiny city backyard, raised some cute chickens, moved to a beautiful town and met several new friends! Its been a good year indeed. 2012 is going to be interesting, that’s for sure! More to come about our plans for this year. For now, onto other things.
Thanks to a nifty end of the year report that WordPress so graciously provided me I know that these were my most popular posts of 2011.
#1. Giant Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies – Yea, this is America, of course the chocolate chip cookie is the most popular.
#2. Asparagus and Gruyère Tart – Oh so cheesy and yummy. Asparagus season is in just a couple of months!
#3. Red Lentil Dal – Wonderful for a stuffy head and nose.
#4. Strawberry Cake – Perfect for summer parties… or to hoard for yourself.
#5. No Bake Chocolate Tart – Written in 2010 but came up #5 for most popular in 2011. I have to say its one of my favorite posts to date. The tart is great too.
I have to add some of my own favorites to the list. How about…
– Eggs and Zucchini – this post made it onto Glamour.com! Crazy right!
– Plum Jam – Hands down, my favorite jam.
– Camp Chicken and Corn + Camp Menus – I love camping. I love camp cooking even more. Add a bunch of rain for a real adventure.
– Oven Fries – I love these oven fries. I make them almost every week.
– Pull Apart Cinnamon Bread – I have been craving this. So perfect for winter. Not so perfect for my after the holidays figure.
This year I have two blog goals. One is to share more of the great lunch and dinner recipes I make on a regular basis. I have loads of recipes that I make repeatedly from memory. I want to get those written down for my family to have. My dad often cooked from memory and its taken me 4 years to figure out a close match to his pinto bean recipe, which, by the way, I will be blogging about in the next week or so.
My second goal goes back to my original motive for starting this blog, which was to figure out and/or collect my favorite family recipes, like my Dad’s pinto beans, and blog them for us all to enjoy. I would love to have enough for a little book of family recipes by the end of the year. We will see!
Shoots and Roots 
Have a great 2012. Enjoy your blog and will keep checking in on those family recipes.
What a way to start the year. I’m trying to figure out how to make the asparagus tart with winter veg, since I can’t wait until spring.
Maybe try fresh baby spinach or chard? Let me know what you try!
That was nice list 🙂 to put up there. I think it’s even better that you added your personal favorites in addition to those wordpress said were most popular. Yum…I want to eat, just reading about all that food! Delicious, Melissa!
My partner and I stumbled over here by a different web page and
thought I might check things out. I like what I see so
now i’m following you. Look forward to checking out your web page again.