In the last two weeks, I have made some more progress on the two biggest Things: the Cookbook Thing and the Read or Rid Thing.

It had been a while since I’d done any cooking from the Smitten Kitchen book so I was glad to get back to it. First, I made Broccoli Slaw for a work meeting. It was a little too much vinegar for me. And I think maybe I didn’t include enough onions. But it was still mostly eaten at the meeting and Adam enjoyed the little bit I brought home. Then last weekend, I made Wild Rice Gratin with Kale, Caramelized Onions, and Baby Swiss. I cut the onions wrong so they were kind of bigger than they should have been and didn’t fully caramelize, and I think I should have used a shallower pan for baking. It wasn’t as cheesy as I expect from a gratin, but it was good. Adam loved it and took the leftovers for lunch all week. I took a few pictures of each one, but I get pretty caught up in what I’m doing when I’m cooking. Especially when I’m trying to make it for a specific meal timeline.

So that’s two steps closer on the Cookbook Thing. I’ve still got a looooooooong way to go. I should have picked a shorter cookbook. haha. But I’m glad I picked this one. It’s just the right amount of challenging — almost too challenging at times, but so far I haven’t had any true fails. My favorite thing that I’ve learned from this cookbook is how much better it is to measure ingredients by weight. It’s so much easier and more precise and I feel like I’m getting things much closer to how the recipe intends, which makes me happy.

Then, on Read or Rid, I did another book purge and reorganization of my LibraryThing list. Some I had tagged as Read or Rid are books that Adam loves, which means I can’t get rid of those, so I removed the Read or Rid tag. And I got rid of about 10 books. Which isn’t a lot, I know. But I made a new rule. If I start a book and I decide that I’m not into it, I will not finish it AND I will not keep it. So I think that will lead to more purging. I’m down to where I need to finish a book approximately every  I finished another book — Crossing the Horizon by Laurie Notaro. It’s not the kind of fiction I usually read, but I enjoyed the book. Now I’m reading Housebroken, humorous essays also by Laurie Notaro. I’m loving it so far, but I’m still in a bit of a reading funk. I’m having trouble with the concentrating part.

But anyway, to meet my Read or Rid goal, I’ll need to finish and/or purge one book per week for the rest of the project. That’s assuming I don’t buy anymore books. I can’t even type that with a straight face. hahahahaha