Winter persists. From late November through the late weeks of April we will have cold, we will have wet and we will have wind. Sure, this weather happens erratically throughout the year, but there’s something about the long winter that wears on people’s minds and mood. Maybe it’s the gray. Maybe it’s the cold. For some, maybe it’s the lack of fresh food.
The foods of winter (I believe) are under-appreciated. On the one hand there are so many delicious root vegetables; and at the same time, you can only eat pureed foods but so much. It’s like the winter takes away our interest in chewing and all we want to do is swallow. We want warm liquid to throw down our throats. We want food to fill us up for longer swaths of time. If we can’t have sunlight or hours of heat throughout the day, please weather gods, grant us foods with zest. We need to remember the tastes of summer.
Well folks, summer is a ways off. We must embrace the hearty foods of winter. They grow for a reason. It is cold and thus we must sustain ourselves on different foods, cooked different ways. Maybe we eat more meat. We roast, braise, bake and broil. We fill the home with warmth from the oven before we devour the morsels of slowly cooked stews and soups.
This week’s menu reflects our approach to winter – slow-roasted meats, vegetable gratins and filling meals of seasonal produce. Here’s what I put together for the days ahead:
- Orecchiette with cauliflower and lacinato kale
- Spice-rubbed and slow roasted round steak with swiss chard and potato/horseradish/parmesan gratin
- Borscht with boiled potatoes
- Rosemary and garlic lamb chops with rice and glazed carrots
- Thai coconut curry and vegetables
(My) comments on meal choices:
1. The first dish is a favorite pasta recipe in our home. Orecchiette is a type of pasta and lacinato kale is the fancy way of saying dinosaur kale, which is called that because it looks like the scales of a dinosaur. The recipe is somewhat time consuming and prep time speeds by with a tag-team duo, but it makes a huge portion of food – plenty of leftovers for lunches during the week.
2. This winter I am exploring my interest in gratins. Ostensibly, a ‘gratin’ is a casserole. The difference I suppose is the cut of the vegetables. In a gratin you try to thinly slice the vegetables and layer them in a deep pan with cheese, cream and herbs. Unless you are lactose-intolerant and such a meal would make you sick, I highly recommend trying a recipe like this. Again, lots of leftovers. And you can also you serve a gratin with a side salad or a soup. Here, I want to use the gratin as a fancy side for a meat dish.
3. A couple months ago we purchased 1/2 a lamb from Afton Field farm. A lot of the meat we received took the from of lamb chops. Lucky for us, I discovered a simple and AMAZING recipe for the chops. Hands-down, this is one of the best meals I make time and time again. Until the chops have disappeared, you can expect to see this recipe return.
4. Now that I have figured out how to make a decent curry dish, I can’t help but have this on the menu every other week. It always makes a ton of food and I LOVE coconut milk. I could easily drink coconut milk all day. One day I’ll have to find other uses for the stuff, since I can’t seem to leave this recipe behind.
Again, another week of super delicious food.
All this and more for less than $100!
Related posts:
- The Last Dance with Kale (weekly menu 27)
- Walking the Talk (weekly menu 16)
- Kale, how I love thee (weekly menu 5)
- Winding Down Winter (weekly menu 26)
- Does eating seasonally equal eating “American?” (weekly menu 6)
Tags: afton field farm, lamb, seasonal eating