Let's just touch briefly on eating today.
These short, dark days of winter, especially in January and February, I find myself craving wholesome food. Comfort food has been required on some chilly days recently, however the past several days have been unbelievably warm here, reaching mid-seventies - I even popped the A/C on for a short time on Friday evening as the house was hot upstairs! However my kitchen has been busy - well I've been busy as I do not have a sous chef, just a dishwasher guy who resembles Bob! He's a great help.
Bean and Winter Squash with Chili, Mint and Cream.
Last week I made my favorite winter 'hot pot', a term used more in the UK than here. Somewhere between a soup and a stew, these wholesome one-pot dishes of winter vegetables are meals in themselves. You can add meat - we are non-meat eaters - as the French often do in their 'potages', or stay strictly vegetarian. One pot actually cuts down on calls to that dishwasher guy as the sink doesn't fill with too many items during the prep..........and other than a couple of deep bowls and soup spoons there's not much cleanup after this comforting meal.
During the cooking period the ingredients simmer away in the pot, flavors enhanced as they bubble gently. You can taste test and add more seasoning if needed, and these sturdy recipes can even gain flavor when left to stand a while, and then enjoy a gentle reheat when mealtime arrives. Here, I must say, the leftovers are always extra delicious so make enough for another meal in a day or so!
Hot pots are fun to make, nutritious and easy. Make them a complete meal when serving with a good crusty bread, a roll, warm naan, or topped with homemade crunchy croutons (I always use up leftover breads to make mine), a side salad, cheese and fresh fruit . . . . . . or skip the bread and use it later in a dessert!
Rummaging through a box of old recipes saved over the years - prior to shelves of fancy cookbooks and online versions - I discovered my mother's lovely handwritten recipe for "Bread & Butter Pudding".
An often served dessert when I was growing up, left over buttered bread served with a meal was never thrown away. Times were tough and food was still rationed for several years after WWII was over. Desserts were sometimes made from first course savories such as Yorkshire Pudding (Popovers here in the States), always baked in a separate dish alongside a Sunday roast beef. Remaining portions were given a spoonful of golden syrup (Tate & Lyle of course) and we children gobbled it up! Needless to say we didn't count calories or watch our diets back in the 1950's, and we ate everything that was put in front of us. We did go out to play and walked everywhere which I'm sure helped.
Bread Pudding as it's called in the USA, seems especially popular here in southern restaurants, and there are plenty of recipes floating about online, however this time I decided to use a leftover from the holidays, an Italian Panettone bread. Glad I did when despite it still being within "Best By" date, it was definitely rather stale. Being bathed in a nice eggy vanilla custard and baked slowly to a crisp top was all it required. Try it if you have one hanging around, you'll be surprised. I served mine warm with a dash of heavy cream plus a splash of Chambord liqueur, delicious!
Panettone Bread Pudding
Full of Fruits Breakfast Smoothie
Lastly, I'm back on a smoothie kick. This is the best way for me to eat fresh fruit. This particular one contained a small banana, blueberries I had frozen, fresh raspberries and strawberries, grated coconut, unsweetened almond milk. I usually eat/drink this meal mid-morning as I rarely eat lunch. Two meals a day are ample and since shedding over 25 pounds slowly during the past two years (no strict weight-loss diet, just smaller portions of healthy foods), I find I just can't eat anywhere near as much now. Perhaps the older one gets the less food you require. It's more important that you eat healthy foods in smaller amounts. Just had annual lab work done, everything looks fine so far. So have just returned to my plan from the pre-holiday weeks during which I slipped a bit when it came to snacking on the wrong/delicious Christmas goodies. A fruit laden smoothie yesterday, oatmeal today, and perhaps a hard boiled egg with a slice of avocado toast tomorrow. Any ideas for easy breakfast/brunch goodies are welcomed as we all go forward into February. Thanks for checking in here. Stay well, eat healthy.
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ReplyDeleteHow lucky and wise to have saved mom's recipes!! Everything looks great thanks for sharing!!
Thanks.
DeleteMary, that reminds me of my Lancashire Grandma's cooking! Her hotpot was unbeatable and I've never quite managed to get one to taste like hers. Bread and butter pudding was one of my husband's favourites. Maybe I'll make a tiny one for me one day,
ReplyDeleteYes a tiny one is a good idea - we gobbled ours over three evenings - it was soooooo yummy!
DeleteDearest Mary,
ReplyDeleteYes, Wednesday and Thursday were very warm and I wore my shorts on Thursday while walking with my wheelchair, used as a walker for stability. I sat in it after pushing some hills.
Soup is perfect for winter weather and indeed comfy in many ways.
You sure are lucky for not having any diet restrictions... I can't eat that much and I'm trying so hard to gain weight but no gram gained over the past week, still 100 pounds. Have 16 more to gain...
Hugs,
Mariette
Dearest, I hope so much you can gain back the weight and feel stronger - sending good wishes X
DeleteI do have some digestive issues due to that d--mn cancer all those years ago - but I know how to handle my diet. I've lost weight over the past 18 mths and feel much better thankfully.
💞
DeleteHello Mary,
ReplyDeleteBread pudding was something we had often when I was a child, too. One of our children could not (and still cannot) abide the texture and so I stopped making it for our family. But recently I made some and we both enjoyed it so much.
Your hotpot looks delicious, and I love a hearty soup with bread and cheese for dinner. Have a good week. Hope the weather stabilizes a little, although I hardly know what that might be these days. Such tremendous swings.
We've had an awesome week of mild, sunny weather - and are grateful. Weekend soup making will include the leek and potato again (everyone seems to love it), and another pot of vegs and white beans which I find so delicious!
DeleteI love soups and stews, and often make my own, preferably spicy with ginger and a hint of nutmeg, but creamy at the same time. Here in Germany, we use the word "Eintopf" - literally "one pot" for those that are not as liquid as a soup, and it is as you say - they often taste even better the next day. Crusty bread or at least home-made croutons are a must!
ReplyDeleteAlthough I grew up long after the war and never experienced rationing, I consider wasting food a sin when so many on this planet go hungry. If I can help it, things don't get thrown out simply because they are a little stale or a day or two past their "best before" dates.
As for fruit, I'm afraid I'll never join the smoothie club :-) I just prefer fruit "as is", apples unpeeled, bananas sliced on top of my muesli, berries whole.
Good news about your lab results coming back fine!
Meike you are so right, ginger, nutmeg and cream - wow you can't go wrong with that combo!
DeleteYour kitchen skills sound great - lucky O.K.
Mary, your photos are drool-worthy! I, too, am a fan of soups and stews, and like to make enough to freeze in portions and vacuum seal. That way, when I don't want to cook, good healthy food is right at hand. My go-to breakfast needs to taste good, and have lots of protein, so most days I start out with collagen in my coffee before the gym. When I get home from the gym, I like a slice of toasted Ezekiel bread with peanut butter, a fair amount of the Good brand cottage cheese, and a small bowl of some sort of nuts - pecans or walnuts. Fiber, carbs, some good fat and protein - this fills me up for the whole day! If I snack, it will mostly be a protein bar or protein shake, and then a healthy dinner filled with veggies and protein. My Dr. wants me to have around 120 grams of protein per day, and it's not too hard to get that amount. I feel so much better when I get in enough protein!
ReplyDeleteKarla, you sound like you have it altogether in regard to a sensible, nutritious eating plan. We love mixed nuts too and usually squeeze in a handful during the day. I always try to find at least one brazil nut as they are supposedly very healthy - and you only need one!
DeleteEverything looks so delicious and healthy. I love homemade soups in the fall and winter. Tonight we will be finishing the split pea soup I made last week. I think the combination of flavors in your hot pot sounds very interesting. Particularly the mint addition.
ReplyDeleteWhen covid was in it's early days, I saw a recipe in a magazine for an immunity boosting smoothie. Made it religiously and do feel it helped us avoid the plague. I'm still making it and changing out the fruits I use to keep it interesting.
Hope your week is a good one, Mary.
Any chance you can share the immunity boosting smoothie please Kim? Fortunately we've never had Covid either.
DeleteLove split pea soup - even though I make it without ham being non-meat eaters (me 100%, Bob about 95%). With the right seasonings anything can be made to taste delicious!
Enjoy the NC weekend - it's been a great week hasn't it?
Mary -
I was too young in the early 50s to remember rationing and food poverty, but I still remember how my parents and grandparents responded for years. Vegetable and lockshen-pasta soup was nutritious, cheap and very filling.
ReplyDeleteI had to look up that particular pasta Hels, interesting.
DeleteLearn something new every day, haha!
We eat a lot of soups in the winter. In fact, I just finished a bowl of soup for dinner. It was Mexican inspired...lots of veggies, black beans and a little leftover taco meat to use it up (you can leave that out, of course) with cumin, chili powder and Mexican oregano. I have a smoothie for breakfast every morning in the summer. (I put a lot of stuff in mine...almond milk, fruit, baby spinach or kale, collagen powder, hemp hearts, flax meal, beet powder.) Just can't drink them now in the morning when it's so cold here, brrr! So my go-to breakfasts in the winter are either a bowl of Greek yogurt with fruit, collagen powder, beet powder, hemp hearts, flax meal, pumpkin and sunflower seeds and some toasted nuts OR sometimes a piece of organic sourdough bread (I get it from a place here that makes true sourdough from organic grains - it's the only bread that doesn't bloat me!) with peanut butter and fruit on top of that.
ReplyDeleteI have been terrible about eating too many sweets since December. I can tell I've put on a few pounds. I also need to get back to my daily walks since we're now past our frigid spell.
Love black beans - often make a of pot tasty "Frijoles Negro" - soup first day then thicken (cook it down a bit longer) for serving over rice or grains (bulgar is good), then leftovers spread on warm crisp tostadas with mashed avocado, salsa, grated cheese and a dash of sour cream and cilantro!
DeleteYour smoothies sound awesome Mel, and I'd love to try that organic sourdough bread!
Yes, we need to start walking more - no weight issues thankfully for either of us - I had to take pants to the tailor to be taken in recently, haha! We need more movement though, and fresh air!
Those all look so lovely, I could almost smell the hot pot, just right for a winters day. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteWish you could really smell it - something about coming indoors to a lovely kitchen aroma isn't there!
DeleteThanks for the blog visit Chris.....
Your soup looks delicious! I need to make more soups for sure. You always inspire me to do so. Thanks for explaining the popovers and Yorkshire pudding is the same, I always wondered. My mom often made popovers when we needed a sweet treat with a bit of jam. Oh so good!!!!
ReplyDelete