Today is thick and white. The entire landscape out the window is cold, stark and absolute winter. It doesn’t feel like there would be a fresh morsel of food for thousands of kilometers.
So I decided to find some inspiration for local recipes out there – here’s a few great looking ones for the heart of winter:
Butternut Squash Curry from Seasonal Ontario Food. So much to love about this – including the blog itself which focuses on recipes with at least 80% local ingredients. It’s a blog I pop over to on a semi-regular basis and find a lot of interesting ideas through.
The Vancouver Sun shares recipe ideas and a profile on soup that is fit for our Gold Medal Women’s Hockey team here. The recipes could easily be localized although I’m not sure it’s a scoop to report that the head of our hockey federation is a soup fanatic – though I did find that anecdote rather humourous.
The Montreal Gazette offers ideas for Maple-Roasted Chicken. It’s also a good reminder that syrup season (one of the first crops of the year) will be here before we know it!
Roasted Steak Sandwiches – The Intelligencer claims that this is the time if year that we’re “raring to roast.” I think they may actually be right – we could also benefit from the extra heat this morning.
The Toronto Sun has taken on Apples – apple chips, apple fries and apple sundaes. This is also my favourite time of year to preserve apple sauce and I’m a little hopeful that it will be the secret ingredient for the can jam for the month. There’s so many things to preserve in the fall and apples cellar through the winter which makes the timing prime for canning apples. My apple sauce is my Grandmother’s favourite – and fabulous with a touch of cream in a bowl.
The Toronto Star headed to Hank’s to check out their Ontario grits. apparently the results render the chef kissable. They do look fantastic.
I started this post thinking there would be a shortage of ideas based on the bleakness of the world through the window. The truth is there’s lots of ideas – and even more people sharing them. I’m feeling a step more inspired and just that much hungrier.
Happy winter everyone!
MMMmmm! I just want to hibernate and eat those grits all day long! My favourite apple thing to make I learned from my mother, are apple fritters!! Sliced pieces dipped in the same recipe as my moms palacinka (crepes), fried and then sprinkled with cinammon sugar. Now I have to make them! Thanks Joel.
Thanks very much for the kind words! Definitely appreciated… and returned.