Simple habits for healthy, hearty fall and winter feasts

Fall and winter are great times to serve simple, hearty meals. And despite what my Pinterest feed would suggest, hearty food doesn’t have to mean “casserole” or “pasta” or “cheese”. Cooking for comfort doesn’t have to be hands-on, either. Rather, intentional use of your pantry (freezer, refrigerator and cupboards) will help you serve delicious, healthy and satisfying meals on your schedule, and on your terms. Here are some simple ideas to get you started.

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Roasts, whether whole birds or a cut of pork or beef, can be kept frozen until you are ready to roast them.  My precious husband grilled the rooster you see in the picture above, but I generally follow the slow-roasting technique described in the marvelous cookbook The Nourished Kitchen: Farm-to-Table Recipes for the Traditional Foods Lifestyle Featuring Bone Broths, Fermented Vegetables, Grass-Fed Meats, Wholesome Fats, Raw Dairy, and Kombuchas.  Slow-roasting produces meat that is succulent, tender and juicy. If you need to be away from home, the slow-cooker will also do an admirable job.

Fall root vegetables are long-keepers in cold storage: Having a variety of beets, potatoes, squashes and other root vegetables on hand means that you have easy side dishes available. During the fall and winter, I make a habit of buying 5-10 pounds of organic potatoes and in-season root vegetables each month. (We don’t currently grow any root vegetables on our homestead). Most of my grocery shopping is done on a monthly cycle. At our most recent monthly purchase we bought celeriac, russet potatoes, red potatoes, beets and parsnips.

For this particular meal, I washed and trimmed about three pounds of beets, wrapped them individually in foil, and baked them in a pan in the oven at 375 for about an hour and 15 minutes. If your beets are extremely large, you can help them to cook more uniformly by halving or quartering the larger ones.

Other fall vegetables: Our fall garden has been a huge boon this year, producing  lettuce and parsley (until our first hard frost), collard greens, kale, mint, onion tops, and numerous heads of broccoli. We still have yet to harvest the Brussels sprouts and red cabbage. At some point we will want more variety than our winter garden will produce. I am experimenting with growing greens indoors for those days. I’ll keep you posted.

For the meal above, I cut a head of broccoli and steamed it for seven minutes. A little salt and pepper to taste are all that is needed to enhance the fresh, mild taste of fresh broccoli.

Now, I know that many of you do not grow a fall garden, and some don’t garden at all. For those of you who cannot maintain even kale in a pot on your front steps, you can still have vegetables on hand. I suggest that you make judicious use of your freezer by stocking high-quality, interesting frozen vegetables.

• For example, Stahlbush Islands Farms, a small, sustainable family grower sells handy basics such as cut greens as well as multi-color cauliflower blend, a multi-color corn blend, and Tri Colored Carrots – all add variety, brightness, and a bit of fun to your fall plate with nearly no additional work for you.
• Jarred, high-quality tomatoes such as these Jovial Organic Whole Peeled Tomatoes are also a boon to the winter cook- they can be added to roasts, grains, soups, or just eaten on the side with herbs and garlic.

Naturally, you can buy fresh greens and in-season vegetables from your local farmer or grocer, but that would involve a trip! It’s much easier for me to maintain all the ingredients for a full meal in my pantry.

My pantry is vibrant and useful: My freezer is full of meats, fish, vegetables, berries, home-cooked meals and sides. My refrigerator contains long-keeping, multi-use dairy products, long-keeping vegetables (and occasionally, fruits), sourdough starter, and thawing food. My cupboards contain jarred tomatoes, bulk grains, flours, dried fruit, nuts and other staples. I use my pantry as the basis of my meal preparation, and can pull together a healthy meal without leaving my home (even without using whatever is in my garden).

I’ve touched on the topic of pantry-keeping briefly in the early days of this blog. I wanted to revisit the discussion again here. However, the process of building and maintaining a pantry, and then turning that pantry into meals is difficult to describe in a few posts. Instead, Gentle Reader, I am working on writing something a bit more comprehensive. I am in the early stages, so please tell me if there is something specific you would like to see addressed, or if a particular format is best. Please comment or use the contact form below. I appreciate all of your feedback!