In the back of my mind, I’ve been thinking about what to post this month. You know, A TOPIC. And nothing presented itself that seemed quite right. So I started to compose a post about little updates - the beaver has moved on to another pond somewhere, the chickens are fine, our holiday break was lovely, I love winter - and then I started in on food, deleted all of the preamble, and here we are.
At the moment I’m in January’s beautiful clean slate mode, which for me involves a lot of food management - I like to take the opportunity to see what’s on hand and use things up. Everyone in the house would say that I am always doing that, but it’s next level in January. (It’s not quite as intense as a few summers ago while in the same sort of mode I put some frozen soup in the Instant Pot for supper only to have Adam call when I was doing errands to let me know that it had, in fact, been a bag of compost. The bones gave it away.)
Knowing exactly what is in the freezer, fridge and pantry is so helpful in making weekly menus and not having things fall to the back/bottom only to become unrecognizable and inedible. Chest freezer tip: use sturdy, wipeable reusable tote bags (I love the ones from Bulk Barn for this) for different categories of food, in the bottom of the freezer. They can easily be lifted out for defrosting or cleaning, and to check what you have in there one bag at a time instead of needing to dive in to dig all of the way to the bottom. I have one bag for meats, one for fruit, one for vegetables, and one for other stuff. And then the baskets on top for butter, ice cubes, and things to use up, and sauces and soups on the shelf over the motor. Bread products are light and easy to move around, so they kind of sit on top of the bags when we have extras; they’re usually in our kitchen freezer. Oooh, another tip: freeze sauces and soups in large ziplocs, flat on a cookie sheet, then you can stack them upright like files and they’re much easier to manage.
Phew - who knew there was so much to say about freezers? Back to using things up for a second - I’m always trying to make sure that as little as possible ends up in the compost, and this week I’ve been on a kick. Warm stewed rhubarb on plain yogourt on a winter morning is its own special delight. As is banana bread with a lovely pat of butter. Baked beans and brown bread and friends over for supper after skating at the rink was another highlight of the weekend. All absolutely delightful, and fuelled by using it up!
On to the recipes! It’s always fun to have new ones to try, so here are a few that we’ve been enjoying.
Creamy Tomato Pasta with Italian Sausage: This is the most delicious supper recipe that I have tried in a long time. I’ve made it several times over the past few months, and I just can’t say enough about it. It is QUICK, it is easy, it has SO much flavour, the sauce is creamy and hearty, it’s filling and warming and cozy, it uses things that we regularly have on hand and we all like it. Here are my notes to accompany the linked recipe: I use whichever tube-shaped pasta I have in the pantry, although I do like the bite of rigatoni as recommended in the recipe, and the sauce fills the pasta in such a pleasing way. I always add a whole small onion, because who could be bothered to only use 2 tbsp of onion? I use mild Italian sausage, and keep a package of No Name chopped frozen spinach in the freezer for recipes like this. It comes in two large compacted cubes in the freezer section, and one cube is perfect for this recipe. If you forget to thaw it, like I always do, you can put it in a ziploc in warm water for a little bit while you’re making the rest of the recipe, or you can just toss the frozen block of spinach into the pan as you’re cooking the onion and sausage and chisel away at it as it thaws. As far as substitutes, I haven’t tried making this with a meatless sausage substitute, but if you have one you like, I’m sure it would be delicious. Likewise for the cream - if you need a non-dairy option, you’ll want something that’s really creamy but doesn’t have a flavour persay. And of course, you could use gluten-free pasta. All of these things would affect the outcome in ways I can’t predict, but of course it’s worth a try if those are the constraints you’re working with!
Sandra’s Baked Beans: Baked beans and brown bread as a Saturday night supper is a very Maritime thing. Since Sandra shared this recipe with me in 2019, I have made it countless times. (The recipe is in the description box of the video.) It’s inexpensive, simple, and one of those recipes that you can put in the oven and leave for hours. It freezes and reheats well, too. I had never had baked beans that I truly liked until meeting this recipe. Unfortunately, Emin’s Meat Market as mentioned in the recipe is now closed after the death of the owner, so there is no more double smoked bacon from there to use, but any smoked bacon will do; the smokier the better. I made it with sliced bacon on the weekend, but I do prefer chunks if unsliced is an option you can find.
Brown Bread
To go with Sandra’s beans - it’s a match made in heaven. This is my mother-in-law Roxanne’s recipe.
1 1/4 cup warm water
2 tsp yeast
1 tbsp butter
2 tbsp molasses
2 tbsp brown sugar
2 tbsp skim milk powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup old fashioned rolled oats
Generous 3 cups flour
I use my stand mixer and first dissolve the yeast in the warm water until it foams. Add the rest of the ingredients and knead with the dough hook for 10 minutes, adding a tiny bit more flour if the dough is too wet. Cover with plastic wrap or a damp towel and let it rise (over a furnace vent in our house at this time of year) until it’s more or less doubled in size. Shape it vaguely into a log and plop it into a bread pan, cover and let it rise again. I do this on the stovetop while the oven is preheating. Let it rise until it’s a bit higher than the edge of the pan, and bake at 375 for 50 minutes. This recipe makes one loaf; you could always double it! Serve with plenty of butter.
Enjoy! And if you have any favourite winter meals that you’re like to share, please do in the comments. Happy New Year!