Question of the Day, Sunday, November 29, 2015

[micknsnicks2mom]

it's fall here in the US, though this year it's been a pretty mild fall so far -- at least in my area. i'm starting to plan my meals around more recipes i use during the cold weather months, and i've started baking again.

with these thoughts on my mind, for today's Question of the Day.........

Let's talk about our fall/winter (or seasonal, for the part of the world where you live) meals --

What are some of your favorite meals for fall/winter (or the current season where you live)?

i'll go first!

for me, it's mostly casseroles, some slow cooker meals, and soups. i do 'throw in' some other meals here and there, to mix things up a bit. some of my favorites are --

• Baked Rigatoni (same ingredients as lasagna, but much easier to make)
• Turkey or Chicken Enchiladas
• Pancakes, with homemade Blueberry Syrup
• Tuna Noodle Casserole
• Chili, served with buttery cornbread or biscuits
• breakfast for dinner -- Fried or Scrambled Eggs, or an Omelet -- with toast; French Toast with either Maple or Blueberry Syrup; Egg in the Middle; and etc.
• Sweet n Sour Pork, with rice (sometimes white, sometimes brown rice)
• Mac n Cheese (or Scalloped Potatoes), served with hot dogs or Italian sausage
• Beef Burrito Casserole
• Quiche
• homemade Pizza, usually pepperoni with extra cheese (i particularly like a combination of mozzarella and asiago cheeses)
• soups -- Green Split Pea, Chicken Noodle or Chicken rice (i'll use turkey instead, if that's what i've got), Beef Barley or Beef and Vegetable, Tomato, Bean and Bacon, Potato soups (there's a lot of different potato soups i make), tortellini (cheese or beef) with vegetables

How about you?

 

[swampwitch]

I like to use the oven a lot in the Fall and Winter for roasts and roasted vegetables, beans and other legumes, and pies (or crisps, cobblers), mainly because it helps warm up the house.  It's pretty chilly here 9-10 months out of the year, and I cook 5-6 nights a week so my list is of meals is very long. 

I change the way I cook for 3 months during the summer, when we have a salad every night plus another vegetable (from the farm-share deliveries) and use the grill almost every night. We eat less cooked vegetables and fewer starches like potatoes and rice during the warmer weather, but that's mostly because there are so many fresh vegetables to eat up in the summer.

 

[denice]

I think the main things that I cook in the colder months but not the summer would be stews, chili, and pot roast made with chuck roast.  I don't why I only like it with chuck roast.  I think it both has really good flavor and can stand up to the long slow cook better than the other cuts like round.

 

[catlover19]

Chili, turkey soup, split pea with ham soup, chicken and dumplings, beef stew, chicken and broccoli casserole, spaghetti and meatballs, lasagna.

 

[fyllis]

Ahhhh - Fall and Winter 'comfort foods'!

Some of my preferred dishes include:

- Rib roast with oven-roasted baby red potatoes and parmesan crusted asparagus

- Cottage ham, potatoes and green beans with onions

- Juicy meatloaf, garlic mashed potatoes and lima beans

- Papa's Chili (a recipe my Dad got from a cook in WWll)
Of course, I make this ALL year round, but it's especially good on a cold night!

- Beef Stroganoff

- Pork tenderloin, red beans and rice, and tender asparagus with homemade Hollandaise sauce.

- Fried cabbage and whole potatoes with Kielbasa sausage 

- Potato pancakes with sour cream and salmon, or pork roast and sauerkraut.
(I also like them just by themselves with some sour cherries, plum compote or applesauce)

- Chicken and homemade dumplings

- Pinto beans, ham, and cornbread.

 

[Mamanyt1953]

Winter cooking is so much more fun that summer cooking!

I make several variations of potato soup

Crazy Good Chili (I was a psychiatric tech and got the recipe from a patient)

Shepherd's Pie

Rice bake (Veggies, rice and some meat or another cooked with sauce in a casserole)

Corn bread cooked with onions, peppers and sausage, served with a salad

Pot roast with potatoes, onions, carrots and turnips (yes, turnips.  They're lovely that way)

Pot pies of all sorts, veggie, beef, chicken, seafood...yummmmmmmmm

Pork Lo Mein...well..I order that.  It's Chinese comfort food in my book

 

[miagi's_mommy]

Fall has already passed here.... well we have tons of snow so that's why I am saying that! 

I'm not really sure what my favorite meals are seasonally to be honest. I like to drink a lot of hot chocolate with marshmallows when it's cold though! I can't think of a meal that actually warms me up lol.

 

[fyllis]

 
Winter cooking is so much more fun that summer cooking!

I make several variations of potato soup

Crazy Good Chili (I was a psychiatric tech and got the recipe from a patient)

Shepherd's Pie

Rice bake (Veggies, rice and some meat or another cooked with sauce in a casserole)

Corn bread cooked with onions, peppers and sausage, served with a salad

Pot roast with potatoes, onions, carrots and turnips (yes, turnips.  They're lovely that way)

Pot pies of all sorts, veggie, beef, chicken, seafood...yummmmmmmmm

Pork Lo Mein...well..I order that.  It's Chinese comfort food in my book

Ah, man! Turnips! I love them cooked (any way imaginable! They work just like potatoes!) and raw!  I also forgot about Shepherd's Pie! Yummy!

 

[micknsnicks2mom]

 
I like to use the oven a lot in the Fall and Winter for roasts and roasted vegetables, beans and other legumes, and pies (or crisps, cobblers), mainly because it helps warm up the house.  It's pretty chilly here 9-10 months out of the year, and I cook 5-6 nights a week so my list is of meals is very long. 

I change the way I cook for 3 months during the summer, when we have a salad every night plus another vegetable (from the farm-share deliveries) and use the grill almost every night. We eat less cooked vegetables and fewer starches like potatoes and rice during the warmer weather, but that's mostly because there are so many fresh vegetables to eat up in the summer.

i'll use the oven on a regular basis during the fall and winter too! the extra warmth using the oven makes in our house is wonderful.

 

[micknsnicks2mom]

 
I think the main things that I cook in the colder months but not the summer would be stews, chili, and pot roast made with chuck roast.  I don't why I only like it with chuck roast.  I think it both has really good flavor and can stand up to the long slow cook better than the other cuts like round.

my mom always used a chuck roast for making pot roast, so that's what i use too. pot roast is another favorite of mine, though i don't make it often.

 

[micknsnicks2mom]

Chili, turkey soup, split pea with ham soup, chicken and dumplings, beef stew, chicken and broccoli casserole, spaghetti and meatballs, lasagna.

those all sound good! 

 

[micknsnicks2mom]

 
Ahhhh - Fall and Winter 'comfort foods'!

Some of my preferred dishes include:

- Rib roast with oven-roasted baby red potatoes and parmesan crusted asparagus

- Cottage ham, potatoes and green beans with onions

- Juicy meatloaf, garlic mashed potatoes and lima beans

- Papa's Chili (a recipe my Dad got from a cook in WWll)
Of course, I make this ALL year round, but it's especially good on a cold night!

- Beef Stroganoff

- Pork tenderloin, red beans and rice, and tender asparagus with homemade Hollandaise sauce.

- Fried cabbage and whole potatoes with Kielbasa sausage 

- Potato pancakes with sour cream and salmon, or pork roast and sauerkraut.
(I also like them just by themselves with some sour cherries, plum compote or applesauce)

- Chicken and homemade dumplings

- Pinto beans, ham, and cornbread.

those are some nice comfort foods! 

oh, i love meatloaf! i like it hot, fresh from the oven, but i love a cold meatloaf sandwich the next day.

i make pork, sauerkraut, and peeled sliced apples in the slow cooker sometimes. the apples make it a little different, though i don't always add the apples.

 

[micknsnicks2mom]

 
Winter cooking is so much more fun that summer cooking!

I make several variations of potato soup

Crazy Good Chili (I was a psychiatric tech and got the recipe from a patient)

Shepherd's Pie

Rice bake (Veggies, rice and some meat or another cooked with sauce in a casserole)

Corn bread cooked with onions, peppers and sausage, served with a salad

Pot roast with potatoes, onions, carrots and turnips (yes, turnips.  They're lovely that way)

Pot pies of all sorts, veggie, beef, chicken, seafood...yummmmmmmmm

Pork Lo Mein...well..I order that.  It's Chinese comfort food in my book

very nice variety there! 

mmmmm.........shepherd's pie!

 

[micknsnicks2mom]

 
Fall has already passed here.... well we have tons of snow so that's why I am saying that! 

I'm not really sure what my favorite meals are seasonally to be honest. I like to drink a lot of hot chocolate with marshmallows when it's cold though! I can't think of a meal that actually warms me up lol.

it's unseasonably warm here still. we've had some snow that stuck to the ground for a day or two then melted, and a few days where we had snow flurries that melted upon hitting the ground. it's below freezing most nights now, but during the days it's still above freezing here.

my number one thing to eat that guarantees to warm me up is hot oatmeal. in fact, i eat a bowl of hot oatmeal most nights shortly before bedtime during the cold weather months.

 

[Winchester]

Your meals all sound delicious! And now I'm starving to death!.

It's not that bad at all outside. No snow....yet. Some days we're really below normal temps; other days, we're higher, so I guess it all evens out. No complaints here.

I'm another oven-user during the fall and winter. After I pull the meal out and turn the oven off, I keep the door open to let the heat dissipate into the kitchen.

My favorite meals for colder months:

• Pretty much any kind of soup or stew: potato chowder is so warming, beef stew, chicken corn soup, etc. Always served with Vermont Corn Bread (made with maple syrup) or some kind of biscuits or muffins for dunking into the soup.
• Baked ziti or rigatoni, again with some hot homemade yeast rolls or slices of bread to clean the plates. A simple goulash works, too. Baked spaghetti.
• There's something about a roast chicken or Cornish hens for dinner with mashed potatoes and gravy. Or with wild rice and butternut squash.
• Cornish pasties filled with beef, onions, carrots, potatoes, and mushrooms and served with a red wine sauce. Yum. Just yum. One of my pastries fills a dinner plate. Rick loves them.
• Pot roast. I just love pot roast. If I'm working, I'll do one either in the crock pot and let it go all day, or in the pressure cooker when I come home.
• Chili, whether it's made with meat or vegetarian. I love both and keep containers in the freezer.
• Chicken fricassee with dumplings and peas (It's an old Bisquick recipe and has stood the test of time in our house)
• When I do need the taste of bbq, I throw a small pork loin in the crock pot and make pulled pork sandwiches
• Pot pie - I like beef or chicken pot pie, but Rick prefers beef and (we are fans of chuck roast for beef pot pie). The meat simmers for hours on the stove, then I roll out the dough and cut it into squares to drop into the simmering pot. There is nothing better than a good pot pie. But we also like a deep-dish chicken pie (and I saved some of our Thanksgiving turkey in the freezer just for a good turkey pie.)

We tend to eat more baked goods during the fall and winter, too, and I'm not quite sure why. I always have homemade breads and rolls in the freezer, but we have the fruit pies that I made during the summer and put in the freezer, and we'll always have some cookies or cupcakes. Maybe because of the holidays? I don't know. But Rick has always been a big fan of desserts and, while we don't have them that often in the summer (other than cookies), we do enjoy them in the winter.

 

[artiemom]

All the food sounds delicious!

I want all of them!

Since I am cooking just for one, it is kind of daunting to find really good recipes. I mean, I have all my favorites, based on my mom's recipes and my own recipes; but cutting down the amounts is a daunting challenge. 

I mean, for example: it is hard to decrease a can of stewed tomatoes in half.

I rent so my freezer space is very limited. I only have the freezer which is the top of a refrigerator. Before my dad and I moved to this apartment; I used to cook a big amount, and freeze a lot in the upright freezer. I already halved the recipes to accommodate this freezer; but now that my dad is gone, I am just cooking for one. I do get tired of leftovers. I am also on a limited income...

so it gets challenging..

I am just venting...

You guys made me want meatloaf!!! 

 

[blueyedgirl5946]

We haven't had extreme cold yet, but it will be coming.

In fall and winter, I like foods cooked in a pot or crockpot, soups, dried beans with ham, meat and gravy or stews like beef, venison, etc.

I also like to put things in the oven to cook. It helps to warm the house and gives off such good smells. I love the odor of sweet potatoes baking in the oven. I bake them and put them in zip lock bags. I eat at least one most every day.

 

[fyllis]

 
All the food sounds delicious!

I want all of them!

Since I am cooking just for one, it is kind of daunting to find really good recipes. I mean, I have all my favorites, based on my mom's recipes and my own recipes; but cutting down the amounts is a daunting challenge. 

I mean, for example: it is hard to decrease a can of stewed tomatoes in half.

I rent so my freezer space is very limited. I only have the freezer which is the top of a refrigerator. Before my dad and I moved to this apartment; I used to cook a big amount, and freeze a lot in the upright freezer. I already halved the recipes to accommodate this freezer; but now that my dad is gone, I am just cooking for one. I do get tired of leftovers. I am also on a limited income...

so it gets challenging..

I am just venting...

You guys made me want meatloaf!!! 

I agree with that! It can be a real challenge cooking for just one. I've tried, more than once, to make my Dad's chili in a smaller amount, but unless I go all out and make the 2 1/2 gallons in the big soup pot it just doesn't ever taste right! I end up eating chili every day (morning, noon and night! LOL) for a week! I freeze some but, like you, I have an 'apartment' freezer that barely holds 2 ice-cube trays. I do end up giving quite a bit of my chili away to neighbors, friends, and family. 

And, you just can't make a small roast - they never turn out very well. I have to get at least a 3 to 4 pound roast, so I always have left overs. But that can be a good thing. Hot or cold sandwiches the next day are always yummy!

I am always searching for 'recipes for one', but they are hard to find!  

 

[Winchester]

When our son still lived at home, he devoured food (and I mean that in a nice way). A typical boy, he was hungry all the time. He was the kid who drank straight from the milk carton because it was easier than trying to find a glass (we gave him his own milk carton 

). I cooked larger quantities. So when he moved out on his own, it took a while for me to be able to decrease the quantity of food that I prepared. I was used to him being home and I was used to cooking for an army. 

Finally I decided that I needed to start cutting back on quantities. I sat down with my favorite recipes and did the math to prepare them for 2-3 people, Rick and me, and then a wee bit leftover for Rick's lunches. It took a while, but I can figure things out now very well. And you should see some of my cookbooks...there are pencil scratchings all over the pages, where I wrote, "4 tablespoons equal 1/4 cup, so 1/2 of 1/4 cup is 2 tablespoons" and so on. I learned to measure by tablespoons, sometimes teaspoons, to get to where I needed to be. Yeah, it was a pain in the butt sometimes, but overall, it has worked out well. I can pretty much take any recipe and cut it back to what I need, just by looking at it.

I have a magnet on the side of my fridge that has measurements in cups, ounces, tablespoons, and teaspoons. It's a wonderful time saver because it's all right there.

If I was using a 28-ounce can of tomatoes, but I only needed 4 ounces for one recipe, well, the rest of the tomatoes went into the fridge to be used later on. I tried to use recipes that week that I could use the tomatoes in, so nothing went to waste. So I might make meatloaf with tomatoes and then a couple days later, use more tomatoes in a chicken dish, and so on. Or make a meatless pasta sauce with the leftover tomatoes. I might keep the tomatoes for a week, but I'd get them used up and they didn't go bad in one week. That way, they didn't end up in the garbage. I do that with broths and stocks, tomatoes, even dried beans sometimes, or rice. Thankfully, Rick is OK with the way I cook, so it works out.

There are a lot of cookbooks on the market that specialize in recipes for only one or two people. There's a neat baking book, Small-Batch Baking, I think it's called, that the recipes are really stream-lined to make 4 cupcakes at a time or only one dozen cookies.


(the chocolate lovers version)

Taste of Home has lots of recipes for one or two people:  http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/cooking-style/cooking-for-two

 

[Mamanyt1953]

 
All the food sounds delicious!

I want all of them!

Since I am cooking just for one, it is kind of daunting to find really good recipes. I mean, I have all my favorites, based on my mom's recipes and my own recipes; but cutting down the amounts is a daunting challenge. 

I mean, for example: it is hard to decrease a can of stewed tomatoes in half.

I rent so my freezer space is very limited. I only have the freezer which is the top of a refrigerator. Before my dad and I moved to this apartment; I used to cook a big amount, and freeze a lot in the upright freezer. I already halved the recipes to accommodate this freezer; but now that my dad is gone, I am just cooking for one. I do get tired of leftovers. I am also on a limited income...

so it gets challenging..

I am just venting...

You guys made me want meatloaf!!! 

So, meatloaf for one...make a batch of your favorite meatloaf, and bake it off in the large sized muffing pans.  Wrap in plastic wrap when cool, freeze (won't take much room in your freezer at all, I have the same problem you do).  Take out one at a time, thaw and heat in microwave.  Meatloaf for one, on demand.