Welcome 2017

Hello, all…

…and welcome to 2017.  I think this is entirely appropriate to start this post as being the first of 2017.

I do hope that everyone had a lovely Christmas and New Year. For us it was very busy as always with the last minute shopping, making food for our Christmas hampers. Our hampers were an alternative for my father in law and some close friends as presents can sometimes be quite hard to buy and as they love food as much as we do it looked to be the simple solution. They can, however, take a little while to make as they can contain a lot of components. What we like about the hampers is that the whole family get involved in making them. So this year we had some additions meaning we had to make six hampers this year where it has been two for the past few Christmas’s.

Christmas day has always been a feast as well giving an opportunity to make a lot of food for everyone which lasts for a few days after Christmas day, especially the cakes and snacks.

I must admit though we are like most families at this time of year and bought some of the pre-made foods from the supermarket, I mean it would take an age to make everything homemade and probably cost an absolute fortune. This is where the planning came into full effect to ensure that we balanced the budget against the food required. This is absolutely key to a successful Christmas, in fact, any planned events and party’s, and vital to me as I know I could go bonkers and buy, buy, buy when it comes to making food.

What’s in store for 2017 and Looks Good Lets Eat?

I have a few plans for Looks Good Lets Eat that I would like to share them today. As with an older post I aim to implement these over the next year, would like it to be done ASAP, however, want to ensure that I pay plenty of attention to researching the additions to my blog and make sure it fits in with the concept of the blog and continue to bring informative and exciting content to you, the reader.

The first challenge that I will be embarking on is looking at the way we eat and how we can improve some of the meals. I don’t believe that we eat totally unhealthy as a family and I would think that most of our meals are quite well balanced; however, my wife and I are looking at some changes as we do tend to ‘pick’ a lot, especially when it comes to snacking in the evening. For me it is to ensure that I take a lunch to work as when I forget I tend to go for something of the unhealthy kind, generally involving a lot of chips. To review these changes I bought my wife Joe Wicks’ Lean in 15 books, his first release to try his plan and see how it goes.

Today was the first day of the project and of the two meals tried I am pleasantly surprised. As for the fitness side, my wife already embarks on the gym quite frequently however for me I do two sessions a week with the Army, and I will add a further three sessions.

As we progress and try his recipes, I will give updates throughout the month on how it is going and if there are any changes to the chosen recipes I may even add them to the blog with a courteous reference to the original recipe. I must admit, though, after browsing swiftly through the book some of the recipes are very similar to something I have already cooked for my family or even the Army before.

Now for the blog. I have decided to continue in the same manner as I had posted back in November after I decided to take a break from the blog. I have been looking at numerous blogs for inspiration and two that have given me a pick me up are;

• Pinch of Yum
• Charlotte’s Lively Kitchen

There are many, many more blogs that I enjoy reading on a regular basis such as;

• A Mummy Too
• Killing Thyme
• The Purple Pumpkin Blog
• Minimalist Baker
• The Curry Guy

I think the main change that you will see over the year will be the addition of some potential; hopefully, collaborative work with other blogs, having a chance to work with magazines and probably some companies that can add some value to the blog with sponsored posts.

I will also be increasing my social media outreach as it is quite sporadic. Of the few people I have spoken to they enjoy my blog, maybe they are biased as they are friends and family, but if I don’t aim to reach a wider audience, then I may never know.

I will aim to add a new recipe to the blog each week alongside my regular newsletter release and also have a monthly post on what’s been going on, recipe review and update on how the new meal regime is going.

So there it is, a mammoth task it may seem, but this is progress for my blog and family over this coming year.

So do you fancy joining me on this journey…you do…fantastic… then please share this with your friends and family, try the recipes I have available so far and subscribe to my weekly newsletter.

Let us take on 2017 together.

Note*
Background vector designed by Starline – Freepik.com