Setting Kitchen Goals + Printable (KJ Series)

Some months ago I was feeling this need to do things – traditionally again. While listening to a podcast all about homemaking, the idea of Kitchen Goals came up. Whala! I knew how I could finally get started back on my traditional food journey.

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What are the Goals of the Kitchen?

Creating kitchen goals isn’t just creating a fun challenge for yourself. You might get an image of those cooking competition shows, however, the goals of the kitchen are more than a culinary sport. In modern culture (specifically in the U.S. since that’s where I’m at) we want to gamify everything because of our abundance, but that’s actually where we fail.

The goals of the home are to use our skills to survive, build our health and improve the lives of those who live there in order to go out and share God’s word and plan, thus creating a better society.

With this in view, having a goal-oriented kitchen or meal plan will ultimately motivate you for your kitchen duties. Goals give you direction for day-to-day tasks, as well as a WHY for your kitchen.

Who wouldn’t do better having a strong WHY for making dinner on time?

Y’know it may sound really odd to apply productivity and planning tactics to your food, but we do need to act strategically in how we eat nowadays.

You may not be like me, all hyped up about traditional foods, but creating goals for your kitchen could save you money, time, or even your life.

My WHY for my Kitchen

See my firstborn came with health issues, which later I learned carries throughout my family. Allergies, moderately severe eczema, and ADHD were his troubles (but depression, diabetes, and other conditions directly relate to food too).

My husband and I struggled with what to do, particularly about the eczema since this baby’s arms were bleeding regularly (sorry for the graphic depicture, but it was an everyday reality for me).

The medicines weren’t stopping it, creams were useless, and I learned that over time the medicines could cause it to get worse. Kind of like over time more antibiotics are needed as bacteria develop to survive the increasing doses.

Long story short, most health issues, and ours in specific, won’t be solved with a topical cream or even a pill.

Praise the Lord for bringing us to the GAPs protocol, and healing my son of almost all of those things.

He no longer carries an Epipen. His brain works better. Zero eczema.

The protocol worked but it’s pretty intense (and not meant to be followed indefinitely). Once we were done, instead of just taking a reprieve, easing up, and continuing with the general idea, we fell away. I couldn’t follow in the footsteps of some internet-famous traditional foods gurus like Farmhouse on Boone’s Lisa Bass or Merissa Alink (have you checked out her book!) -ladies that I respect and follow.

So my why for my kitchen is to continue our health.

Printable for kitchen goal setting – Get Yours for Free in the Treasure Box

What are SMART Goals in the Kitchen?

Keeping in mind that the kitchen is the Heart of the Home, we need to act probably the smartest in the kitchen for an orderly home. If you haven’t heard of or are new to productivity space, SMART is an acronym

• S – Specific
• M – Measurable (and Meaningful, can you see when you’ve achieved it)
• A – Achievable
• R – Realistic (Reasonable for the season you are in)
• T – Time-bound

If your goal is to have dinner on time, a more organized kitchen, healthier meals or snacks or perhaps you are learning how to cook, you will do much better if you follow the SMART method.

My Traditional Foods Cooking Goals

I’m still working on what and when for my goals. However, I have in mind some specific things that I know make a big difference. My own specific SMART goals will be shared thoroughly on my Instagram, but for now, let me give you the categories.

Homemade Broth

For us, this is the standard or foundation of our traditional foods kitchen goals – must make broth. It is healing, soothing and everyone knows how quickly a cold improves with chicken soup! While doing the GAPS protocol, we really learned how to cook with broth, so this is always the beginning of our journey back to real food.

Ferments and Cultures

This is the heart of my kitchen goals that really took my son from sickly to healthy: populating the microbiome (gut) with good bacteria (also known as probiotics).

Culturing foods comes with keeping a schedule for waiting or feeding or stirring, in order to cultivate the good bacteria. This can be an obstacle for starting ferments or creating a successful one, so I have created my own ferment reminder schedule!

More Vegetables

Keep in mind that organic is the best (and many local farmers can’t get the stamp “organic” because there are fees and testing involved but you can ask them about their spraying standards and procedures).

However, there is such a thing as the most chemically sprayed (the dirty dozen), and as long as you stay away from those you don’t have to always buy organic. Just eat a variety of colors and lots of dark greens and you’ll be supplying your body with a lot of nutrients.

Grassfed Meats

My kitchen goals as concerns protein are probably the hardest. We tend to eat beef, turkey, and chicken and that’s it! But finding real grass-fed, grass-finished beef and poultry that has been treated right, feed natural food for poultry, and really anything else natural is difficult, especially at a reasonable price. I hope, included in this goal to get meats from local farmers, but this will take some time.

For now, I will keep buying the brand at Aldi’s which at least says grass-fed but I know that isn’t the end of the story unfortunately. However, it’s at a reasonable price and is better than conventional beef.

Kitchen Goals Printable

To help you with your own kitchen goals, I created this cute printable (y’all know all my printables need to be cute).

You can get this goals printable and all my freebies by joining the Pretty Paper Planners community 🥳

However, this isn’t the end! I am planning to show you have to create your own kitchen journal, using this and other printables or you can use a notebook. So grab this today and get ready to make your kitchen and food better!

What are your goals? Tell me in the comments below!