A new way to help achieve your New Year's cooking goals

December 30, 2025·Darcie

We have reached that time when many of us reflect on the past year and set our aspirations for the next. Last year, my main intention was to read or re-read every one of my cookbooks. On this, I failed miserably. I will not share the paltry number of books I made it through, but in my defense, 2025 was a challenging year work-wise (work not affiliated with EYB or CookShelf, which remain bright points). I changed jobs, moving to a new city with new coworkers and new systems to learn. That's a lot of new, and it consumed a ton of energy.

However, another of my intentions for 2025 was to add more cookbook recipes to the "I want to make this" Bookmark in EYB and huzzah! I did it! Now I have a lovely list of recipes to try in 2026, and to make it through this list is my New Year's goal. I am excited to say that CookShelf will help make this achievable thanks to the new goal feature available in the app.

If you haven't yet downloaded CookShelf, this provides the perfect opportunity. You can subscribe to EYB in the app (if you are new) or access it as part of your Eat Your Books Premium membership. You can download the app from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store.

Perhaps I had a premonition last year when I wrote "set a goal of cooking 50 new recipes" because that is the "Sous" level for one preset Goal in the app, and that is what I'm choosing. That breaks down to roughly one recipe per week, which seems achievable. Now I just need to decide on which one to do first. It will be so satisfying to see the number of recipes tick up on the counter.

Another cool thing about CookShelf is the "All-Time Stats". I always feel like I am under-utilizing my books, but it turns out I have cooked from 111 of them, about 25% of my collection. That is more than I thought, and gives me encouragement to drive that number up next year. Can I hit 50% in 2026? I'm eager to try, especially because I added several great new books to my Bookshelf this year. The Goals feature should give me the nudge I need to stay on track.

I'm also interested to see if my 2026 goal will change the top books in my stats, because I have a few that have multiple bookmarked recipes just begging to be made. Maybe this is the year a salad book will land on top (although I am not holding my breath on that one). What are your cooking, baking, and/or cookbook New Year’s goals? Did you achieve what you set out for your 2025 intentions?

9 comments

lkgroverDecember 31, 2025

My 2026 cooking goals are to: 1) decrease the number of cookbooks I have made less than 2 recipes from by 50%; 2) cook 120+ recipes; 3) share 2 recipes per month with coworkers or friends. (In September 2025, I joined a "game night" club that meets biweekly. I provide appetizers or a dessert once a month. This makes goal #3 feasible.)

JennyCampisiDecember 31, 2025

Thanks for sharing. Is there somewhere that points out what drives the stats? I have things marked as cooked and chefs who I follow but am not sure how I made updates to mark these...Looking forward to using the goals in 2026.

breakthroughcDecember 31, 2025

For 2025 I set two goals of cooking 50 new recipes and cooking from 50 different cookbooks. I achieved both goals with the second one being much easier. Tracking what books I was cooking from did solidify what my go to cookbooks are and made me realize I cook from a wide variety of my books. I’m pondering my 26 goals. I like the idea of looking at all my cookbooks, but that does seem daunting. I would love to hear more about what others are setting as goals.

dbuhlerDecember 31, 2025

I set a goal every year (though I've never finished it) to cook one new recipe from every book I own. I don't actually expect myself to complete it, but it does push me to open books that I don't reach for often, and I like that. In 2025 I made 164 new recipes and cook new recipes from 51 of my books. In comparison, in 2024 I made 241 new recipes from 70 of my books. This was a year with tough seasons and I found it was helpful to lean into our family favorites during these times, which was really good for me because I tent to focus a lot on trying new things. My kids especially loved revisiting old favorites so I may adjust my goals for 2026 to incorporate more of this. The goal I set on the app was 100 new recipes but I may adjust that up or down after a few weeks. I have also considered baking from a single book for a month to help me get to know the recipes and the writer of that particular book. I've always been drawn to the idea of baking/cooking my way through a whole book, but it also feels daunting. Being in one book for a month seems like a good middle ground to get me started.

ozfoodieDecember 31, 2025

@JennyCampisi same! I don't understand how it tracks what I cooked. It definitely didn't capture all, so it would be good to understand it in relation to this goal feature.

KatieDecember 31, 2025

In answer to how it tracks what you cook, you can mark what you cook in the CookShelf app (there’s a pot icon on the bottom right of recipe pages), or you can add to your “I’ve cooked this” bookmark list on EYB.

FJTJanuary 1, 2026

I've been tracking what new recipes I cook since 2015 (spreadsheet nerd here) with the goal of cooking one new recipe a week. Over 11 years I've tried 1134 new recipes, averaging just over 100 a year. I'm quite pleased with that, but there have been years when I've only managed 50 when life has been really tough and one amazing year when I clocked up 175 in a year and must have chained myself to the stove. I can't quite give up my spreadsheet where I make notes on all the recipes I've tried; it came in handy last year when I helped a friend (newly diagnosed with coeliac disease) with a list of my fail-safe gluten free baking recipes. I've decided to start the new year off as I intend to continue and I'm making gluten free choux pastry for the very first time today!

London_MummyJanuary 1, 2026

I had actually deleted the Cookshelf app because the website offered greater functionality, eg seeing what other people are cooking, observing what cookbooks are popular with others, seeing others' Notes on particular recipes, making shopping lists, etc, but I redownloaded it to see my stats. It is nice how the app shows you photos of all the recipes you have cooked. I usually set a goal to avoid buying any more cookbooks, but that always runs alongside a longterm goal to buy unusual & interesting vegetarian cookbooks before they go out of print. I've enjoyed the website the most not for making me cook challenging brand new recipes but for helping me find the more mundane recipes in my cookbooks, & improve my cooking by reading the recipe & fine-tuning the details, instead of cooking from memory. I really love my modest collection of cookbooks because I only have books by writers whose recipes & style I like. I feel a bit sad that I have been neglecting my unindexed books so I may try to cook once a week from those books.

tuiJanuary 1, 2026

I buy carefully chosen cookbooks very regularly and I get a great deal of pleasure from actually reading them. It's rare that I don't end up cooking several recipes from each new book but even if I don't I have still enjoyed reading them. The great resource of EYB for me is to bookmark favourite recipes (currently just over 400 for me) and I go back to them very regularly. It's easy to forget about something that everyone enjoyed and it is good to revisit "old friends" and not always be looking for something new.