Cozy and Cheeseless

It’s that time of year again…the dead of winter when not much else is happening, so I do a cooking post!

Like my other hobbies, my cooking interests keep evolving. Six months ago, I would have said my spouse and I were cheesetarians. We ate pasta regularly, and salads regularly, with plenty of cheese featured in both. Now? Again, it’s the dead of winter, so I don’t feel much like big leafy salads, and for some reason pasta has fallen off the rotation in favour of quinoa. We haven’t even been making omelets. So…next to no cheese. (Except cheesecake. That’s different.)

Instead, we’ve been rocking stews and soups, the ultimate in coziness. We bought each other a Dutch oven for Christmas — those are the ceramic pots with an iron core that can go both on the stovetop and in the oven. Which means it’s perfect for browning your meat or sauteing your aromatics (new word for me!) and then throwing everything else into the same pot. Having a new kitchen toy, of course, has revitalized our kitchen game — at least temporarily.

Disclaimer I: Those things are heavy (or maybe I’m just weak)! Ours is a 5 qt. pot, and I can only lift it when it’s mostly empty.

Disclaimer II: We are not superhuman! We cook something big and ambitious once a week, twice at most. The rest of the time, we order in, or else we eat leftovers or premade food or something else that’s dead easy. Also, cooking together is a thing we both enjoy, so we put time and energy into it.

Recent accomplishments in the Dutch oven include:

• jambalaya (Cajun soupy rice/seafood dish)
• tangy beef brisket with fennel
• and, still in the fridge as I type this, a mixed-seafood noodle soup that bears a passing resemblance to pho (Vietnamese noodle soup)

And outside the Dutch oven:

• GF crepes (okay, the savory ones did have cheese in them)
• GF cornbread baked in the cast-iron frying pan
• an autumn-inspired quinoa salad with a side of acorn squash

My spouse has been making cold-steeped drinks (I just made up that term…like cold-brew but not coffee, may be either alcoholic or non) in our big glass pitcher. He puts in an entire sliced orange (including the peel) and various seasonings. This winter it’s been cinnamon sticks, cloves, and sometimes tea or herbal tea, other times cran-raspberry juice or apple cider. Of course all those things would make a nice hot mulled drink, too, but it’s easier to just pour straight from the fridge.

We’ve also been making hot GF cereal semi-regularly with quinoa, milk, and fruit (usually either apples or pears and a mixture of frozen berries). Highly recommend. We cook the quinoa one night, then make up the hot cereal the next morning, enough for several breakfasts. It reheats just fine once you add more milk, and a spoonful of brown sugar on top makes it the ultimate in comfort food.

Last winter I went on a vegetable-roasting kick. This year, even though it’s all about the soups, we’re mostly using the same winter vegetables, with a focus on local.

Next year it’ll be something else. I’m looking forward to finding out what.