24 in 24

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Jessie: In New Hampshire where the 600 tulip bulbs we planted in October are poking their heads up through the cold earth!

I am certain that I have mentioned many times here on the blog that I love to set goals. I usually have goals related to my writing like the number of words to write in a day or the number of scenes to revise. I have exercise goals for how many hikes or runs to go on in a week. I even like to set them for hobbies and pastimes like creating a watercolor sketch every day for 100 days in a row, or the keeping of a one-line-a-day journal every day for 10 years.

All of these are satisfying and fun, at least as far as I am concerned. But this year I am trying something a bit different. I am working on a goal I am calling 24 in 24. The idea is to complete 24 of something in a variety of categories. So far I am planning to complete 24 knitted items. So far, I have 4 completed and 2 others well underway. In full disclosure, I’m counting a pair of socks or mittens as 2 items.

I also plan to read 24 books from my TBR pile. Sadly, this barely makes a dent in the backlog, but it is a start. So often is easier for me to be bewitched by a new book offered at the library or my local bookstore than to dive into the collection still to be devoured in my library already. Up next is the gorgeous coffee table book Suspended Worlds by Christine Hadsel.

I also thought it would be lovely to send out 24 pieces of snail mail to people I care about. Considering how much I love to add a letter to any packages I send out to my sons, it seems like a very pleasant task. I have already sent out 2 so I think I might just manage it! I have a lovely supply of notecards and paper and am always eager to use my fountain pens so I am prepared and without excuse!

Lastly, I want to try making 24 new recipes. I have completed 4 of those so I may just reach this goal. This one feels the most daunting. I cook almost every day and it is so easy to fall into a rut. I have a large collection of cookbooks including two binders of recipes clipped from magazines over the years. So many of them are recipes that I have still never tried. I am not sure why I haven’t gotten around to it, but perhaps a concrete goal may just make a dent in it!

Readers, do you have anything languishing in your world like my recipe collection? Do you ever create challenges like this for yourself? Do you have a recipe that you would recommend to me to try?

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Published by Jessie Crockett

Jessie Crockett wears a lot of hats, both literally and literarily. As Jessie Crockett she is the Daphne Award winning author of Live Free or Die and the nationally bestselling Sugar Grove series. As Jessica Ellicott she has received starred reivews from Publishers Weekly and Library Journal for her historical mystery Murder in an English Village. As Jessica Estevao she writes the Agatha Award nominated Change of Fortune Mysteries. She loves the beach, fountain pens, Mini Coopers and throwing parties. She lives in northern New England where she obsessively knits wool socks and enthusiastically speaks Portuguese with a shocking disregard for the rules of grammar.

19 Thoughts

  2. Agree with you on “forgetting” to try those recipes that when we read it, we just had to clip it or write it down. But sometimes the tried and true also get pushed to the background and need to be brought back to our attention. I have tons in my “tried and true” family cookbook I made from my Mom and Granny. I often have to just sit down and flip through it to see what I haven’t made in ages.

    With spring upon us and fruit starting to develop on the trees, this recipe should be one you would try. We love it!

    FRESH PEACH DELIGHT
    The magic of his favorite dessert is that it is versatile for whatever fruit is in season at the time. To change it up with different fruit (strawberries, blueberries or peaches), you just change the flavor or jello or use your own homemade pie filling.

    Here’s the recipe using peaches. It was the original recipe my Mom started using decades ago.

    Ingredients for crust
    1 cup flour
    1 tablespoon sugar
    ½ cup butter softened, 1 stick
    ¼ cups finely ground pecans
    Ingredients for creamy layer
    1 cup sugar
    8 ounces of cream cheese, softened
    9 ounce tub of cool whip (As you can see old recipe. You can use the small tub or part of big tub. I usually use big tube and add a bit more than half of it.)
    Fruit layer
    3 cups of fresh, sliced peaches
    Top layer ingredients
    1 cup sugar
    2 tablespoons of cornstarch
    1 ½ cup of water
    1 package of peach flavored jello (3 ounce size)

    Directions
    Mix crust ingredients until well blended. Spread in 9×13 pan. Bake in a 350 degree oven until light golden brown. Cool.
    For creamy layer cream the sugar and cream cheese until smooth and blended. Fold in cool whip. Spread over cooled crust.
    Top with the sliced peaches and put in refrigerator
    For top layer combine the sugar and cornstarch. Stir in water. Cook until thick. Stir in jello until thoroughly blended. Cool. (I often speed this up by placing pan in sink with water and ice. Constantly moving pan around while stirring so it doesn’t just cool on mixture closest to the pan. You don’t want it to set – only getting thick or it won’t spread properly.) Spoon glaze over peaches covering them completely. If they stick up, take your finger and push them down into the cheese layer. If you don’t, the fruit will turn dark.
    Chill until serving.

    One variation to this are to use fresh strawberries cut in half (enough to cover the creamy layer) and use strawberry jello.

    Another variation is to use a layer of blueberry pie filling instead of the fruit and jello layer. I make my own blueberry pie filling for this using fresh picked fruit.
    Blueberry Pie Filling
    2 cups sugar
    5 tablespoons cornstarch
    2 cups water
    8 cups of fresh blueberries.
    Stir together the sugar and cornstarch in a saucepan. Wisk in the water until smooth. Stir in the blueberries and bring to a boil. Boil stirring constantly for 2 minutes. Remove from heat and cool.
    2clowns at arkansas dot net

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    2. What a great idea, Jessie. I’m a platelets donor, so I have my annual goal of 18 donations per year. I could totally do something similar with my TBR shelf. Cheers!

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  3. I have my annual reading goal: 60 books in a year, which is 5/month. Last year I blew it out of the water with 91. We’ll see how it goes this year.

    I have a whole book of recipes that people gave me when I got married. I’ve never tried most of them.

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  4. I am so not goal oriented, but I love that you are. I sent you a recipe via Instagram a couple of days ago for Reuben roll ups! I must have felt your need for a new recipe — kidding, I just know that you love Reuben’s too.

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  5. The only 24 goal my husband and I ever set was back in the day when we would do 24 in 24–ie watch an entire season of the show 24 over the New Year’s weekend.

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  6. I like the idea of 24 in 24!
    I read between 3 and 4 books a week, I don’t watch a lot of television. But my TBR list grows weekly. New recommendations from reader friends, bloggers, libraries, and bookstores. I can’t resist the temptations.
    Have a great day all.

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  7. Nice to meet a fellow goal junkie! I like the sound of 24/24. Now I’m thinking of how I can apply it.

    As for recipes – oh boy, do I have a backlog. I keep printing new ones, and often I do try them, but there are so many – it’s overwhelming. Last year I went through one of my many folders of to be tried and tossed those that sounded so good, but I knew they’d never see the light of my stovetop. As for the TBR-last year’s goal was to read all those books on my Kindle. I’m left with the collections now and am working my way through them :). This year I am giving myself permission to buy a few more new books to balance the load.

    Good luck!

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  8. Oh that sounds like a fun challenge. I would say I recently (as in last night…) just cleaned out my winter clothes and brought 2 big bags to Savers this afternoon. Now we are expecting snow on Friday. Such is New England weather. I love challenges, lists, etc. I think I will challenge myself to read all my books on my coffee table before buying anymore. aprilbluetx at yahoo dot com

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  9. You sound like me on the cookbook front. I copy a recipe that I see in a magazine on my printer and then place it in a stack. I put them in folders, but I am always behind in filing them and have yet to cook many of them. I finally culled my cookbook collection way down. I got this from my mother who had tons of them. My husband does so much of the cooking, so I still look but mostly let him cook. I start things and am gung-ho for a while and then I go on to something else. I am working on genealogy, getting my parents and grandparents papers in order by date and different aspects of their lives, working on friend’s genealogy for them, working on my movie star collection, etc. Lots of organizing to do and then I go on to something else. One day!!! I work on jigsaw puzzles, read books, watch old movies on TV, and other things. Never enough time. Ah well!!

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