Winter has been a lot of fun in the kitchen. If you are eating locally, it can be an exciting time. I preserved a number of foods last year, and enjoy finding new ways to serve them. Breakfast is usually a mound of plain yogurt doused with canned blueberries or raspberries, or frozen strawberries or peaches. It looks like I’ll have enough to last until we see fresh summer fruit again. I can’t think of a tastier breakfast.
Potatoes from Olsen Farms are a great winter staple. Bake them with butter and cream or toss them with cabbage and hot bacon dressing; either one is great with a platter of their grilled sausages. Make a breakfast hash, or use them in Portuguese kale, bean, and potato soup or parsnip, pear, and bacon soup. Try potato cakes stuffed with spinach and sun-dried tomatoes—I like these topped with yogurt for a light supper.
Meat dishes are warm and comforting in cold weather, like Skagit River liver with bacon and onions or pork chops with apples. Serve these with bread and butter pickles, or sunny and beautiful hot pickled cauliflower (achar)—actually I made assorted achar from carrots, tomatoes, and cucumbers. Achar is my new favorite pickle.
Burgers are pretty much a food group around our house; Sea Breeze recently had some ground beef that was outstanding on the grill. In winter, we dress ‘em up with cider-glazed onions, fresh cabbage and corn relish, Willapa Hills blue cheese with bacon (house favorite!), fermented relish from Firefly, or your favorite Parker’s pickle with oozy cheese. If I’m feeling like an early spring, I grab a wedge of Ladysmith with Chives from Samish Bay—but be forewarned, this cheese is very, very addictive.
Supper dishes are nice if you like smaller, simpler evening meals. My favorite is savory cheese pie with chard. I also like making eggplant moussaka using other vegetables if I’m out of dried eggplant (like I am now). There’s pumpkin moussaka, as well as potato moussaka, and zucchini moussaka (you candry zucchini, just like you can eggplant). These dishes all make great leftovers for lunch the next day. This Russian beef soup with barley and mushrooms was a hit at a recent cooking class—comfort in a bowl. I like making Chilean style bean soup through winter until I run out of canned tomatoes and dried (or frozen) corn.
This winter I’m having the most fun with corn from Alvarez and field peas from Nash’s. I haven’t written up recipes yet. But the corn has made its way into potato chowder and corn bread. So far there is roasted corn chowder with bacon, dried corn chowder with Alvarez smoked chipotle and Stoney Plains kale, and frozen corn chowder with Loki smoked salmon. All of these chowders are winners. The cornbread, with Golden Glen butter and Tahuya River Apiaries honey, is to die for, seriously.
For beans or field peas, I soak and cook one pound at one time with a little salt, then freeze them in several packages for appetizers as well as meals. You can mash them with oil and garlic and serve like hummus with lavash crackers for a snack (or lunch). Simmer peas them with onions and tomato-chili sauce (from ground dried tomatoes and chilies) to serve with poached eggs for breakfast or for dinner with grilled fish (dusted with crushed chili and dried thyme). I have a lot of curry powder in the cupboard, so next up will be curried peas. I’m finding that field peas need long cooking and a heavy hand with spices, which they happily soak up and deliver in a tasty, fiber-rich meal.
Well, I have to wind this up. I told you about the cornbread, and a piece of it is calling for me. I’d love to hear about what you are cooking up this winter.
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