In the true spirit of moving forward into the future that is 2026, I used ChatGPT to create the above image. Cool. I guess.
Was your holiday everything you hoped it would be?
Are you back on the no sugar wagon yet?
Are we all collectively committing to our goals and determined to make it longer than 30 days with whatever it is that we previously haven’t been able to tackle?
My goals are logged, printed, and taped into my planner. My guidelines and new paradigms as well. I’ve time blocked my calendar. I will be available for wayyyyy fewer zoom meetings.
I resolve to delegate more to my wonderful co-founders and team, and I’m determined to spend my time only working in my “zone of genius”:
connecting with YOU, my readers who are also my beloved customers at Eat Happy Kitchen
creating new content on my YouTube and TikTok to help us all stay off of sugar
committing to the creation of a cooking show and a new podcast
launching my 4th cookbook Eat Happy Cocktail Hour in October (it will be 6 months of promotion lead-up time)
all while keeping my body and mind fine-tuned as best as I can
That’s not the whole list, however.
We’ve got a comedy festival to pull off in June and show on Valentine’s Day to sell out, several events to help put on as a nonprofit board member of the Santa Barbara Women Winemakers and Culinarians, and oh yeah, I have personal relationships like a marriage, mother to a grown up kiddo, and friends to give love to so that I still remain human in the midst of it all.
If you’d like to do the yearly review process I do at the end of each year and set yourself up for some audacious goals you have a shot at accomplishing, check out the book Your Best Year Yet by Jenny Ditzler.
FREE SHIPPING, HAPPIES!
We’re experimenting with free shipping over at Eat Happy Kitchen.
Right now, if your order is $75 or over, you get free shipping.
This is kind of a big deal for us as a company as we’ve previously been unable to sustainably offer free shipping and not go broke in the process.
And that $75 threshold is subject to change if our bookkeeper tells us to raise it.
But for now, I hope it will entice y’all to take the plunge and try out some of our incredibly delish, clean food.
And if you pick up an EHK beanie, I’ll personally ship you that and tuck a cute sticker in the padded envelope.
OK now…let’s cook!
I make a lot of chicken broth. And you should too. Have it in the freezer so you can use it at a moment’s notice. Here’s a recipe for chicken broth (plus it’s in the original Eat Happy cookbook).
But real life means that sometimes you need a vegetable broth.
While my main focus is meat dishes, being a low carb cookbook author, I do love vegetables, and I love vegetarian options for things because I have vegetarians in my life who I love and want to cook for.
Plus, so so many vegetarians write me asking about how to adapt my recipes. They want to do low carb, too, they want to maintain their vegetarian-ness, and I want to help with that.
So I invented a fool-proof veggie broth that will knock your socks off. I made it on Thanksgiving since I was bringing some dishes to my friend’s house, and I wanted to make sure my vegetarian friends could enjoy everything I was cooking.
This advice will help, whether you’re making veggie or meat broth: SAVE SCRAPS OF STUFF!! Old onion ends and skins, carrots, celery, garlic cloves, herbs you think might be turning…then you will have everything you need on hand.
Throw scraps in a ziplock that you keep in the freezer, and most of the work is now done for you.
I use EHK Salt Dust liberally in this recipe as it was designed to be a bouillon cube replacement (and trust me, it has all the flavor for that purpose). You can use salt and pepper in place of the Salt Dust.
Downloadable, printable PDF of Vegetable Broth lives here:
Happy New Year, and let’s really make it a good one.
XOXO
Anna
VEGETABLE BROTH
(Yields 4 cups)
1 onion, skins on, quartered
2-3 garlic cloves, skins on, smashed
3 celery stalks, chopped
2 whole carrots, chopped
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
Handful of fresh herbs
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
2 tablespoons EHK Salt Dust (or use a salt and pepper)
1” chunk of fresh ginger root (optional, but fabulous extra flavor)
4 cups water
Heat all ingredients in a large sauce pan to a boil, turn down the heat to medium low to maintain a low boil for 30 minutes. Strain out the broth from the other ingredients and use the broth immediately, freeze, or reserve in the fridge for up to 7 days to use later.
I love that Anna makes things easy to transform our lives that are in this zone-NSNG! Save your scraps and make the broth when you have time....how easy and delicious! I can't say enough positive about the Salt Dust-goes on/in almost everything.