winter in the kitchen

I love winter food, the soups, stews, casseroles and roasts that keep us warm and satisfied. Meat loaf, pot pie, pot roast ~ all those rich, comforting tastes. Not that I don't also love the grilling season. But winter menus are my favorite and as it has gotten appreciably colder here in the Valley, I was spurred on on to consult my winter menu files for good things to eat. We don't cook this way at the beach; too hot. So I have about 6 weeks to get a winter's worth of rich, filling dishes.

Last weekend a local market was having a sale of seafoods, so I bought one crab and a 50-count bag of mussels.

The first menu was mussels in cream, one of my all-time favorite dishes. They turned out perfectly, even though they weren't Penn Cove mussels, the best in the world. The cream sauce was very flavorful and not too terribly rich since it is diluted with wine and some vegetable broth. Meat was plump and sweet. Lots of crusty baguette to sop up the juice.

Next I had to decide what to do with the crab. I had been browsing Pinch My Salt, my favorite food blog, when I came across a recipe for Spaghetti Squash Gratin. I'm a big fan of that squash, love gratin dishes, so decided to put them together and see what I came up with. It ended up being a Spaghetti Squash Gratin with Wilted Chard, Mushrooms and Crab.


The squash was slightly crunchy, the crab flavorful, the chard gave it a great look. Very delicious.

And finally, the local grocer had lamb shanks on sale, also a favorite. I cooked the meat half done on Tuesday, then added the veggies ~ mushrooms, carrots, brussel sprouts, potatoes ~ the next night to finish the cooking. Heavenly.


Meanwhile, Mr. C made a big pot of bean soup with a somewhat tired ham hock he found in the freezer. It turned out to be a bit sweet, for some reason. So to counteract that he put the left-over shank broth into the soup to liven things up. Perfect solution.

The rest of the news of the past week centers, still, on preparations for departure. More boxes packed, more drawers cleaned out and tidied up ~ if we didn't take this trip every year I would hate to think of the state of my cabinets ~ for our tenants. I was supposed to go to the hospital on Monday for another x-ray of my toe. But the doc called yesterday to see if I could make it today instead. Yes indeed I could. Good news. Healing nicely, thank you, and no more big boot. I have graduated into a tasteful "surgical shoe" which is not quite Jimmy Choo but much closer.

I have to wear that for 3 more weeks and then I can wear "real" shoes. Can't wait.