Happy New Year!

Welcome to 2013.  You might be wondering if I resolved to blog more in 2013.  Don't hold your breath on that one.  But I am planning to add several posts over the next few weeks.  The topic?  Small appliance cooking. 

My oven was well used over the Christmas holidays since I did a lot of cooking and baking.  Some of it Primal, some not.   Don't worry, I didn't fall off the wagon.  I intentionally jumped off and decided to run along side for a while.  This was our second Christmas after switching to Primal Blueprint living.  That first Christmas we kept things very Primal. 

This time, with nearly 2 years of Primal living behind us, we decided to intentionally, mindfully include some traditional non-Primal Christmas foods in our diet over the holidays, knowing that we'd be able to easily pick right back up with Primal living after the holidays.

Due to our Polish heritage, we celebrate Christmas Eve with a traditional Wigilia.  (Pronounce the W as a V and you've got it).  This is a big Polish Catholic dinner that is considered meatless, but fish is allowed and usually severed in several preparations (don't ask me, I didn't come up with the rules).

For our Wigilia two Christmases ago we modified all the recipes to make them more Primal.  I joked that we would have to turn in our Polish cards for not serving pierogi at Wigilia.  This year we returned to our roots and served traditional foods in traditional preparations, including pierogi, uszka, nut roll, poppy seed roll and cookies.

Among the dessert choices were jam-filled Polish butter cookies called kolaczki and sugar cookies that the kids made and decorated.

It wasn't difficult to return to our Primal Blueprint eating.  If anything, we were more convinced than ever that we are doing the right thing following this eating plan.  The carbs, as tasty as they were, made us feel sluggish and head-achy.  I enjoyed the treats in moderation but still found that I easily gained a few pounds.  On the plus side, returning to Primal eating made the weight come back off quickly and I could still fit in my New Year's Eve dress.

Wondering what all of this has to do with small appliance cooking?  Well, during my holiday cooking and baking frenzy an idea took hold: perhaps it's time to replace my 20 year old, coil-burner range with a new double-oven, smooth top range.  After a week of contemplating this idea I learned that my niece's oven caught fire and she was going to need to replace it on a budget.  I took this as a sign.  I offered her our old range and ordered a new one.  Win-win!  She picked up the old range yesterday but our new one isn't due to arrive for 2 weeks.

So I've dusted off our small appliance cookware and look forward to a couple of weeks of experimenting with Primal cooking without a range.  Given the number of small kitchen appliances we've collected over the years what concerns me most is not figuring out how to make do without a range, but that by the time the new range arrives I'll wonder why I even need it.