Hey friends! What’s on the menu this week?
It’s getting COLD tomorrow and I am grumpy about it. So I will be making soup because cold AF is ideal soup weather.
I don’t know what’s going to be in my soup yet. Probably chickpeas and some veggies. I didn’t realize I already had a pack of canned chickpeas in the basement so I bought another pack a few weeks back from Costco. Anyhoo, now I have a fuckton of canned chickpeas.
Do you have a favorite cold weather meal? What is it?
Hmm…I think my favorite cold weather meal is New Mexican Green Chile Stew, served with warm flour tortillas. Of course, being so far from NM, it’s hard to get my hands on freshly roasted chiles, which means it’s hard to make the stew. But, I think I’m going to plant a lot more chiles in next year’s garden so I can freeze some for just such an occasion the following winter.
Oooh I’ve never had that and I was like omg does it have Hatch chiles in it so I googled it and YUM.
Yeah that stew sounds delicious!
Old school Korean favorites. Mom always makes both in the winter time. Oxtail soup (done without an instapot is a bloody chore.) I know it’s winter when mom breaks out the giant soup pot and puts it on the stove.
For those with more western tastes… homemade split pea soup (with potatoes or ham.)
Oooh that oxtail soup looks delicious. I haven’t had oxtail soup in a few years, and it was during a Caribbean cruise so very different flavor profile. I am drawing a blank on which island I had it on. Dammit this is going to bother me for a while now.
Maybe Jamaican cuisine.
No, I remember having goat curry in Jamaica the 1 time we had a stop there.
Might have been St. Thomas.
Probably some beer. Maybe some bourbon.
Sticking to a liquid diet when it’s cold? Interesting strategy.
Food is not something I put a whole lot of thought into.
Maybe 1 scotch?
Chicken soup with a loaf of freshly baked bread is my favorite cold weather meal. But I don’t think it’s going to be that cold here. I have stock in the freezer for when it does.
Tomorrow is lasagna, and later in the week I’m making Mississippi Chicken in the instapot.Probably order Chinese food this week sometime.
Nice! You using thighs for the Mississippi chicken?
Boneless, chicken breasts. I don’t like dark meat.
So I used to live in MS and I’ve never heard of MS chicken. Just like the years I lived in the Nashville area and never heard of Nashville hot chicken. I don’t know how that happens.
Probably because it was just making chicken in the crockpot for the folks in Mississippi? Like I thought baked mostaccioli was just a standard Italian American dish everyone made until I moved out of Missouri for grad school.
Wait you’re telling me that baked mostaccioli isn’t something that everyone makes?
Is there a recommended way of making Baked Mostaccioli?
I grew up in Scandihoovia, where “Italian” meant sauce from a jar or can over creamette spaghetti noodles, or lasagna being hamburger, that can of sauce, the creamette lasagns noodles, cottage cheese & some shredded Mozzarella…
We didn’t get the GOOD stuff out there, until well after I moved away… so there are MANY things I still needa learn to make😉
Well, ideally you make your own red sauce with a giant can of crushed tomatoes, Italian seasonings, a little red wine, and let it simmer a while.
While that’s happening you saute an onion and a few cloves of chopped garlic, and then you add the meat to cook. If you like fennel, my preference is to use ground italian sausage. If you are not team fennel, ground beef or a mix of ground beef and ground pork works. You want about a pound of meat total. You cook it off in that pan with the onions and garlic.
You then make a 1 lb box of mostaccioli pasta. Make it a little undercooked because it’s going in the oven shortly.
Mix all your stuff together along with like a cup of shredded cheese. Provel with a little parmesan if you’re in St. Louis, mozzarella with a little parmesan if you live anywhere else. Maybe provolone if you want?
Pour all that food into a 9×13 pan and layer more shredded cheese on top. I don’t know the measurement here, you just go with what your heart says.
Then cover in foil and bake for like 30 mins at 350 degrees. It will be delicious and gooey. Also freezes and reheats well. So maybe make 2 pans and freeze one whole.
I’m thinking we have the makings of a new FYCE post here.
Yes please!😉😁💖
Thanks for this, Brighter!!💖
It sounds AMAZING and tasty, and PERFECT for sometime this week!😉😁🤗
If I’m being honest, I’ve gotta admit, I’ll probably use a variation on this as my sauce, since it’s kinda my new favorite sauce recipe… it takes a while to cook, but it’s SO good!
And depending on which spices you make it with (Italian seasoning vs the Berebere), you can get an incredible range of flavors out of it, too😉
That sauce doesn’t work for me in a lasagna because my upbringing had sweeter sauces and that looks very, very savory. Like I read it and it sounds good as a sauce and then I see lasagna noodles and my brain does a 404 error.
It looks like it would work just fine here though!
Round these parts you just order a tray & can of sterno from Portillo’s or Giordano’s 🙂
I’ve run into lots of people who have never had it! Whereas in St. Louis, you go to a wedding mostaccioli. Funeral? Mostaccioli. Any family party? Mostaccioli. Holiday meals? Somebody’s aunt better fucking be bringing the mostaccioli.
Which is amazing because it’s so easy to make compared to something like lasagna.
Growing up in Pittsburgh it was baked ziti or rigatoni. Every holiday, even at a 4th of July BBQ!
It’s not a holiday if you don’t have that tray of Italian casserole type food!
Signed,
I don’t even have any Italian heritage at all and even my family is like this.
Ours here in the upper Midwest was always a version of “macaroni hotdish” or “Goulash” if your family was/is of Eastern European origin…
Elbow mac, kidney beans, hamburger, onion, some sort of canned ‘maters.
There are assorted other spices & additions, depending on your individual family recipe, but those were the basics of it…
In my family, it was called the “red hamburger hotdish”** i didn’t hear it called “Goulash” ’til after college😉
(**the “white hamburger hotdish” was cream of mushroom soup, hamburger, onions, sour cream, & assorted spices, cooked together and then served over egg noodles)
Same in New York. Through good times and bad, whatever the occasion, show up with baked ziti.
Come, smother your feelings in carbs and cheese my loves.
I grew up in a large Italian American family, with lots of Italian American friends and never heard of mostaccioli until I was in my 30’s.
I think it’s one of those things that was most popular in St. Louis, and the important detail to remember is that St. Louis has major middle child syndrome with Chicago. So it’s probably that people were trying to be like “who cares that Chicago is bragging about its Italian food! We have our own great Italian food. Like mostaccioli! Cubs and Blackhawks suck!”
So, last week then?
I don’t know if they really make this in Mississippi or if it got the name some other way.
I love soups, stews, and chili, so I love winter cooking. Tomorrow, I’m going to use the rest of the chicken feet stock I made last weekend and a bag of dried soup mix and make a pot of minestrone-style soup with the rest of the turkey in it. Don’t know what to make after that… I may make tuna melts this week because we have a bunch of little cans of tuna.
Tonight is scrounge-your-own-dinner night. KidSmacks2 and I had a couple of frozen burritos, BabySmacks had ramen, Husband will probably bring home food from work, and KidSmacks3 and Other-Husband will probably eat a bunch of junk when they get home from work.
If I’m thinking right, one of the kidsmacks is gluten-free, so unsure how this would work out, but tuna croquettes are also good.
I used to go to a meat&three in Alabama that did salmon croquettes with canned salmon and they added some corn in there, so it was like a croquette and a hushpuppy had a love child.
I’m making beef stew tonight before my pescatarian returns home tomorrow. My favorite cold weather food or even if I have a cold is Hot & Sour Soup!
https://www.yummly.com/recipe/Hot-and-Sour-Soup-1866291
…& now I’m thinking to myself…beef & guiness stew
…or just a good steak & ale pie…I mean, guiness isn’t the only beer, right?
There was an Irish restaurant I used to visit once in a while and that was where I was introduced to Guinness pie. It was excellent.
I’m going to be making a vegetarian version of mulligatawny soup this week and I think I’m also going to make vegetarian chili. This time of year I like to make really big batches of soups and chili’s and freeze them in individual portions to have on hand for days I’m not up to cooking.
Google returned some great options with their algorithm when I searched mulligatawny soup. Highlighting added for emphasis.
Oh, Google. It never fails to deliver when you need a laugh.
How is babby formed?
Do you remember that, from years and years ago? That wasn’t google though, that was a question someone posed on Ask Jeeves or something similar.
…aside from the part where if I tried to cut meat out of my diet I might actually starve to death…that is some smart thinking of the sort that makes me think I could stand to remember I’m supposed to be a grown up…which definitely includes admitting that some nights I do not feel like being grown up enough to cook a proper dinner
Yup, there are some nights when I don’t want to be a grown up either and if I didn’t keep my freezer well stocked with cooked meals I would end up having ice cream or popcorn for dinner.
That’s a problem, why, exactly?
Lets just say I do not have an iron stomach, and I would likely end up regretting an all ice cream dinner. The popcorns probably ok.
I learned a new trick this weekend – not sure why I never knew this. The secret to crispy tofu is cornstarch. Press the tofu and cube. Dip the cubes in some light sesame oil and soy. Dredge in cornstarch. Bake until crispy, flip to other side and bake a bit more. Otherwise, I’ll be making a shrimp and vegetable bake, glazed salmon, vegetarian vegetable soup, roasted Brussels sprouts, and doing the infamous freezer clean out. I try to label the containers before freezing them, but I end up playing the “what was this” game too often. Hopefully I’ll defrost something that works together.
Cornstarch is great for tofu. I also like to use it when I’m making soy curls and want them crispy.
If you take a block of tofu and freeze it, you can then break it up into crumbles to add to chili. It actually does a pretty good job of mimicking the texture of ground beef.
I’ll have to try that! I have a couple blocks of tofu in my freezer right now that I need to use up. Usually I use TVP when I’m trying to go for a ground beef like texture, but tofu is much easier to have on hand.
Irish soda bread + coffee, for the mornings.
Is that an Irish coffee?
I WISH.
You can do it! We believe in you! It’s 2020, alcohol with/for breakfast is totally acceptable!
I’m both not terribly good at cooking, and really short on free time. So, I’m mostly getting takeout.
About to go get pizza for tonight. that will probably last me till Monday or maybe even Tuesday.
After that, I don’t really know, depends on what day it is and what’s open/available. Senegalese, Poke, Gyros, Filipino-Mexican fusion, Gyoza, Cheeseburgers from a bar, etc…
It doesn’t really get cold enough here to warrant special dishes.
I like grilled cheese and tomato soup in the winter, but I’m not strict about it 🙂
-5…100% chance of precipitation
oh this is going to be fun on the road
if i live ill think about dinner
(tbh…frozen pizza is looking likely)
I make the Cambodian equivalent of Pho (I spell it as Kuytil but I’m probably butchering the pronunciation and therefore the phonetic spelling). It’s a bone broth soup served with rice noodles, ground pork, fermented veges that come in a clay pot, garlic, cilantro, lime, and thai hot peppers/sauce. It’s a family staple all year round but I most appreciate it on cold days.
When in doubt, we have a giant pot of broth that’s continually refilled with water and pork or chicken bones.
We also keep a smaller pot of Tom Yum soup, with whole cloves of garlic, ginger chunks, galangal, stalks of lemongrass, and lime juice & leaves. This gets replenished with the bone broth when it runs low, and we keep chopped chili to personalize the heat.
We use it for straight-up soup, broth for noodle soups, deglazing stir-fries, and in desperation once – thickened with tomato paste as a pizza sauce.
Every week we do this on Sunday, say “yeah, this should last the week”, and invariably having to make new pots by Wednesday.
…that sounds kind of amazing…it’s possible might be entirely more envious than might be considered seemly
DITTO