Goals & Kitchen Goals

I haven't made any official New Year's resolutions, but in the spirit of things, I do have a couple of goals for the year/first half of the year:

• Write my dissertation/defend/graduate
• Find a job
• Actually use the giant bottle of daily multivitamin that is just sitting on my shelf...

Separate from the whole escape-from-grad-school-and-get-a-real-job thing, I have goal to cut back the spice inventory in my kitchen.  Living with roommates I've acquired a TON of spices.  It seems every time somebody has moved out in the past 4 years a ton of stuff gets left behind, and spices are so expensive that I just can't bear to throw them out.  Hence I find myself with stuff I don't know how to use (coriander?) and absurd quantities of things.  Like a pint-size volume of bay leaves? 3 containers of curry powder? 4 containers of cloves?  I love clove, but that's a ton!  So for each month, I'm going to pick a few things that I want to focus on using more.  I don't particularly expect to finish anything within a month (though if I could eliminate some of the multiples I'd be thrilled...), but it'd be nice to make a dent in the massive stockpile.  This month's targets:

• Curry powder - like I just mentioned, I have multiple bottles of curry powder.  For something I generally use about 3 times per year that's crazy.  E and I made this curried spaghetti squash soup this past weekend.  It's pretty good, though we discussed using a higher proportion of lentils and/or adding chick peas to up the protein.
• Rosemary - since discovering that all the shrubbery behind my building is rosemary, I haven't touched the dry stuff in my cupboard.  Time to use it up.  Hopefully we'll get some potatoes from the CSA soon.  And I'll have to get myself a rosemary plant wherever I move, because I'm afraid there's no turning back now that I've had access to as much free, fresh rosemary as I could ever want.
• Frozen cranberries - A while ago I bought bags of frozen cranberries, since they're hard to find outside of the holiday season, but mostly they've just been sitting in my freezer.  Time to make some baked oatmeals and muffins.  Or maybe cookies to bring to group meeting?  Both the cookies and muffins would be perfect because it's citrus season at the CSA!
• Saffron - I swiped saffron from Grandpa's cupboard ages ago, because let's face it, it's not like he has any idea what to do with it (and he's more than happily let me take anything I wanted in terms of kitchen stuff since Grandma died).  Paella is what I immediately think of when it comes to using saffron, but paella is expensive and time-consuming to make, so it doesn't happen often.  But E just got a new cookbook for Christmas that not only looks awesome, but has a handful of saffron-containing recipes.  So we've decided to make one saffron recipe per month for as long as the saffron lasts.  No point in hanging onto the stuff!

P.S. I found a company that sells kits to make your own cookie cutters!  Looks like a means to more weird mascot cookies!