Winter: snow falling, fires crackling, nose nipping, cocoa steaming. After the rush of summer and fall preserving, winter is a glorious time to cook. It’s toastily pleasant to have the oven on, warming up the kitchen, for those long, slow braises and savory roasted vegetables. It’s a time to sit back, relax, and reap the benefits of all of your hard-earned putting up over the growing months and for visiting with family and friends and enjoying one of the greatest pleasures in life: a truly good meal.
So, what about you? Have a favorite seasonal winter recipe to share? I’d love to hear it!
WINTER FAVORITES
Breakfast
- $72 Biscuits
- Bourbon-Glazed Cinnamon Buns
- Freeform Rye Muffins with Red Onion & Farmstead Cheese
- Fruit Butter Granola
- Ginger & Orange Scones
- Mini Linguica Drop Muffins
- Whole Wheat Buttermilk Biscuits
Appetizers, Soups & Sides
- Bertucci’s Sausage Soup
- Bite-Sized Spaghetti Nests with Chard & Bacon
- Blood Orange Black Bean Blini
- Caldo Verde
- Calypso Bean Minestrone
- Celeriac Soup
- Crispy Baked Potato Skins
- Curried Kale & Potato Latkes
- Mandarin Orange Risotto
- Nachos
- Potato Leek Gratin
- Roasted Cauliflower with Bacon
- Roasted Flageolet Beans with Garlic & Lemon
- Swiss Chard Mini Quiche
- Smoky Black Bean Soup
- Tepary Bean, Pork & Winter Vegetable Soup
- Toasted Israeli Couscous with Winter Squash & Preserved Lemon
- Tuscan White Bean Bruschetta
- White Bean, Leek & Preserved Lemon Soup
- White Bean & Roasted Turkey Soup
- Winter Vegetable Soup
Cocktails & Such
Mains
- Black Bean Veggie Chili
- Brazilian Feijoada
- Cajun Sausage & Flageolet Stew
- Chicken & Wild Mushroom Pot Pie
- Chinese Orange Chicken
- Christmas Limas with Seared Pork Cutlets and Fresh Apple Relish
- Cider-Braised Pork Shoulder with Caramelized Onion Sauce
- Dancing Chicken
- Downeast Beef Chili
- Drunken Cherry Chicken
- Jamie Oliver’s Chicken in (Butter)milk
- Lemon Lime Linguine
- Marmalade Chicken Fingers
- Oven-Braised Barbecue Chicken
- Pizza: Sausage & Pepper, Linguica, Goat Cheese with Garlicky Kale, White Bean Pesto
- Roasted Garlic & Walnut Tagliatelle
- Sausage & Swiss Chard Lasagna
- Slow-Roasted Chipotle Beef
- Smoked Paprika & Orange Roasted Chicken
- Stovetop Mac and Cheese (good for power outages!)
- Spicy Mexican Red Beans & Rice
- Strawberry Balsamic Roasted Turkey
- Vaquero Bean & Chorizo Stew
- Winter Greens Risotto with Heirloom Pork Sausage
Dessert
- Browned Butter Rice Krispie Treats
- Cherry Pecan Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Chipotle Bacon Caramels
- Citrus Curds: Blood Orange, Valencia Orange, Lime for Canning, Pink Grapefruit & More
- Cranberry Walnut Galette
- Eggless Oatmeal Cookies
- Finnish Jam Tarts
- Glazed Blackberry Tart
- Filbertines
- Flourless Chocolate Chipotle Cake
- Meyer Lemon Shortcake
- Mom’s Lemon Pound Cake
- Orange-Kissed Chocolate (Cup)Cake
- Pepita Brittle
- Rangpur Lime Tequila Bars
- Vanilla Bean Sugar Cookies
Preserving
Check out recipes in the preserves index for: apples, citrus, cranberries, alliums, carrots and winter squash. It’s also a good time to put up mustard and other seasonless condiments.
localkitchenblog.com 
Not recipes, but what I made recently:
Well-browned lamb shanks braised with pancetta, onions, garlic, anchovy, oil-cured black olives and water (though white wine wold be ok) plus fresh thyme and a strip of orange zest. The first time I made this, it didn’t cook long enough- the meat needs to be falling off the bone and easily cut through with a spoon. Plus I recommend making it the day before. You’ll be able to remove some of the excess fat after refrigeration and it reheats easily.
Cauliflower (blanched) stewed with a sauce of onion, garlic, tomato paste, harissa, Turkish apricots and a little water, a branch of fresh thyme, oil-cured olives plus a strip orange zest. Stew the cauliflower until well-done, not the usual al dente. I’ve also done the same with browned boneless/skinless chicken thighs.
The olive/orange/thyme combo seems to be speaking to me this winter. The “Turkish apricots” are much browner than the usual florescent orange ones and have a much deeper flavor, not as sharp.
Thanks to you, I’m off to buy a chicken and buttermilk for your version of Oliver’s chicken. BTW, his recipe seems to be a reprise of a pork loin cooked in milk that Marcella Hazan came out with in the ’90s.
Oops. I left out a key ingredient in the success of the cauliflower: 1/4 of a preserved lemon- the standard Moroccan-style, cured in salt.