Cooking

One of the best (or maybe only good) things about really cold weather is the dishes I can and should make. As a hard-core environmentalist, maybe now called a survivalist or a sustainability supporter, for 50 years, I don’t use the oven when it’s really hot. I look for overcast days to make something early on that I can eat later. But as it gets cooler, I really lean into the baking, bread for myself and my adult daughter and her family, cookies so I can supply everyone I see with a variety, and oven-cooked meals that I’ve been missing all summer. The grill should be a mainstay, but somehow, it seems like too much trouble. And somebody has to stand out in the heat. Sometimes, it’s just starting to be cool and I’ll cook with the windows open, so as not to heat up the house for later. When it gets really cold, I make sure to open and close the blinds in keeping with the sun’s whims, never opening the north side unless it’s very mild. I love a fire in the fireplace, but it doesn’t make sense if it’s too cold, because the heat from the rest of the house goes up the chimney, so I save it for the milder cold and gray days. But I digress…pot roast! Is the number one thing I cook in winter, and it doesn’t even use the oven. It is the simplest recipe, the way my mother made it (as I remember it). Buy a relatively cheap roast--they are often on sale, and usually labeled pot roast--although there are several options. Sear it in the big pot, salt and pepper generously, then add water, or even stock, to cover. After a few hours, add some cut-up carrots and potatoes and cook another hour or so. There are Italian pot roasts with canned tomatoes, and once I added some thyme. Somebody in my family is allergic to onions (isn’t that insanely unfair, how can I cook for her without using onions or garlic?), but I think you could add them too. Meatloaf with baked potatoes is my husband’s favorite—also something my mother made, without really consulting a recipe, throwing things into a pound or two of ground beef and mixing it with her hands. There are gazillions of great sheet-pan dinners at NYT cooking as well. You could roast a chicken, but DH is persnickety about the tendons, etc., on the bones, and there are only two of us now, so we usually buy boneless skinless parts. I will often have soup in the fridge, so good with a grilled-cheese sandwich, sometimes incorporating the turkey stock or leftover meat from my oversized Thanksgiving turkey. I’m not a vegetarian anymore, but we eat a lot of meatless meals or a small amount of meat with other good stuff. This week, I made apple cake, something else my Mom would make as a treat when we came to visit. PS Charlie enjoyed tumbling a lot more this week.