There’s a canning blog I just got turned onto called Food in Jars, and a post this week has (at this writing) garnered no fewer than 781 comments. The commenters are chiming in because the blogger is giving away a copy of a pretty nice-looking canning cookbook, and they’re all hoping to win. But the blogger asked them to name their favorite wintertime meal, so the comments amount to a survey of what people are eating.
Basically, it’s a cavalcade of soups. Chili, stews, gumbo, clam chowder, lentil soup, potato soup, pea soup, chicken and dumplings……all meals that come in a bowl. And people are chowing on lots of bread, too.
Here’s an interesting one: "Oden, which is a Japanese winter time stew made with root vegetables, fish cake, yam cake, hard boiled egg, and whatever else. The broth is sweet salty made from fish, kelp, and/or shitake mushrooms. Eaten with spicy yellow mustard while hot and steamy."
I also liked this: "I love pulling out a frozen batch of garlic scap pesto & have it with pasta. It’s like a big bowl of Spring!"
And this: "My new favorite wintertime meal is a fabulous hearty, tasty crock-pot quinoa casserole, full of filling quinoa, tempeh, figs, tomatoes, spinach, feta, and a bunch of my favorite spices like cinnamon, cumin and coriander."
I dig soups too. But my favorite wintertime meal, at least from recent days, was pancakes with blueberries that we froze last summer, along with local bacon and tomato juice from the garden.
What are you eating these days?