Seasonal Sundays (Week 4) Mid January

A collection of recipes, word games and books to dive into during bone-chilling January ...

~ Skip Straight to the Good Stuff ~

Welcome to Seasonal Sundays ...

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Your understanding and encouragement after my unplanned long absence truly lifted me up. So much kindness, yours. So much life wisdom, yours. So much gratitude, here.

Special thanks, too, to the bread bakers who shared creative ways to create a warm space for yeast breads to rise. Very inspiring! Post to come!

BUT ABOUT THOSE DUPLICATE EMAILS For email subscribers, my apologies, the Feedburner service that supposedly would no longer send emails, well, it did. I think it's fixed now. But if you happen to still get duplicate messages, unsubscribe from the one delivered by FeedBurner, keep the one from the service called follow.it.

About the Photo By Popular Request, a Little Insight into the Top Image: My book club returned to Zoom this week. Everyone's vaccinated and boosted so since May, most of our small group has been okay with in-person, outdoor, socially distanced sessions. Our last order of business was to select dates for the coming year. Everyone's calendars are "remarkably open" again in 2022 (arrrgh) but still, it was a shock to select a book club date for January 2023, a year from now, wondering what our worlds might look like, then vs now, then vs before.

Real Life, of course, means that tomorrow is just as unknowable as a year from tomorrow, even in times without a global pandemic and a democracy at risk.

It's like looking through a car's frost-covered windshield, a few open spots, much left unknowable.

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PICK ONE

Pick One is for those of us overwhelmed by life's unending choices. If that resonates, then check out this one recipe and then call it a day. It's one that I think could make the most difference, the one I hope will become a regular in your kitchen, as it is in mine.

• THE RECIPE My Chicken Noodle Soup The way I make it, meaty and noodle-y with just a few noodles.
• WHY THIS, WHY NOW Because a great chicken soup has known medicinal powers, heaven knows we need this on so many levels.

What's New?!

Wondering about a recipe from the last while? Check Recent Recipes from Kitchen Parade and Recent Vegetable Recipes from A Veggie Venture.

• THE RECIPE Chicken & Veggies Baked in Foil, a Quick Supper, meat & vegetables cooked in foil for easy clean-up.
• ANOTHER TAKE Grilled Vegetables in Foil Who says a grill is just for meat?

Big Pots of Warmth (& Happy for Leftovers!)

• THE RECIPE Crockpot Chili with Spicy Sausage Brown the meat, dump and go.
• MORE IDEAS Chillin': Favorite Chili, Chowder & Cornbread Recipes

• THE RECIPE Scandinavian Split-Pea Soup Traditional on Tuesdays, without fail.
• ANOTHER TAKE Sausage & Kale Split Pea Soup A classic split pea soup recipe made extra-hearty.

• THE RECIPE At Last! Black Bean Soup My signature recipe for thirty years.
• ANOTHER TAKE Homemade Lentil Soup Comfort food for a crowd.

For My Fellow Word Dancers

• Personal Word of the Year Who does this? I'm still penciling out ideas for mine, a single word or phrase to act as a guidepost, an inspiration, a challenge, a reminder for the year. My friend Sharon says that her 2022 word is "optimism". A blogger I follow chose "fun". I like 'em! But a year is a big commitment, right? like a New Year's resolution waiting to be ignored. (Who knew? There's an official "Quitters Day" for resolution-makers – and it's already Xd off the calendar, January 14th.) So I'm thinking someone like me who religiously marks weeks and months, I need a Word of the Month or even a Word of the Week.


• A New Word? You've heard of sudoku, the number-grid puzzle. But there's also tsundoku, the art of collecting books that will not be read aka my Audible and Kindle Libraries. But the good news is that the Japanese word reflects a brighter version of the proverbial road to hell and all its good intentions, that is, that unread books reveal a curiosity and willingness and desire for life-long learning. Now if I could only put that in one word. Oh right, tsundoku.


• Wordle! It's the quick word game that's gone viral, from a guy who created a simple dare-I-say addictive word game for his girlfriend. I suppose Wordle will go big-time someday but for the moment, there's no app or ads or anything, just a link to play the game. Save the link on your phone, it's surprisingly hard to find because there's been so much coverage from major news media, NPR, NYT, way more. You just might find yourself strategizing about your lead-off five-letter word for tomorrow, from some freaking 12,000 choices.


• More Word Puzzles! In this household, we're also big fans of two other just-one-a-day puzzles that come with a subscription to the New York Times, the Mini Crossword (some times it takes less than a minute!) and the Spelling Bee (six letters plus one mandatory letter to decipher words of at least four letters). I've upped my game on the Spelling Bee, allowing myself to play only if I can first puzzle out the panagram, the word that uses all the letters. Spelling Bee is fun with kids: last summer I copied a few puzzles onto paper and we passed them around the table, seeing who could get the most words in three minutes.


• The Minister's Cat is a [a, b, c ...] Cat I think I picked this up from one of the Outlander books? It fun in the car, we started playing with the twin grandsons when they were six or seven. They're almost teenagers now, the vocabulary just gets more inventive! It's a round-robin game. The first person states, The Minister's Cat is a ____ Cat, filling in with an adjective that starts with the letter a. The next person does b, and so on. And it all feels surprisingly silly and fun!

The Dinner Bell for Vegetable Lovers

Seven days a week, 52 weeks a year, the dinner bell rings. If we're gonna eat, somebody's gotta cook, some nights fuel, some nights a feast. Let's make it good, a welcome end to our days.

• THE RECIPE Mediterranean Eggplant Skillet Quick, easy & tasty vegetarian supper.
• ANOTHER TAKE Roasted Mediterranean Vegetables A casual feast, even mid-winter.

• THE RECIPE Celebration Salad (Maple-Roasted Carrots with Arugula, Dill, Cranberry Vinaigrette, Pomegranate and Glazed Pecans) An exultant platter of texture, color, flavor and mood.
• ANOTHER TAKE Egyptian Kamut Salad with Roasted Carrot & Pomegranate

• THE RECIPE Tuscan Vegetable Stew A melange of vegetables, detox with big bright flavor.
• ANOTHER TAKE Cabbage & White Bean Stew Spartan and spare, a welcome reset for our bodies and tastebuds.

Good to Know

• NEVER NEED A RECIPE AGAIN How to Roast Vegetables 22 Tips & a Master Recipe
• ANOTHER TAKE How to Eat More Vegetables

Put an Egg on Top aka "How About Eggs for Dinner?"

Why should breakfast get all the eggs?! If eggs for dinner were a club, I'd be president, chief marketing officer, resident evangelist, public advocate and ... hey, wanna join my club? Start here!

• THE RECIPE How to Poach a Perfect Egg Step-by-step using Cook's Illustrated technique.
• ANOTHER TAKE Perfect Hard-Cooked Eggs Easy peeling, no green rings.

Meal Prep

• THE RECIPE How to Cook Sweet Potatoes in a Slow Cooker
• ANOTHER TAKE Baked Sweet Potatoes
• AND ONE MORE Delicious Microwave Sweet Potato

Working from Home? Lunch at the Kitchen Table

• THE RECIPE Winter Tomato Soup Roasting, slow-cooking draw out summer flavor.
• ANOTHER TAKE Quick Cauliflower Soup or Quick Broccoli Soup Healthful veggie soups on the table in minutes.

Soups & Salads Especially for January

What sparks you in January? Warms you from the middle out or nourishes you from the outside in? Soup, of course! Salads, of course! That's why I spent a year gathering all of A Veggie Venture's best soup and salad recipes into easy-to-scan month-by-month collections.

Dig into Seasonal Soup & Salad Recipes for January, tons of ideas!

Here's a sample!

• THE COLLECTION Seasonal Soup & Salad Recipes for January, tons of ideas!
• LOOKING AHEAD Seasonal Soup & Salad Recipes for February

• THE RECIPE Winter Greens Salad with Oranges, Avocado, Olives, Feta & Orange-Cumin Vinaigrette
• ANOTHER TAKE Big Cajun Chopped Salad

• THE RECIPE Weight Watchers Zero Points Garden Vegetable Soup
• BUT WAIT, THERE's MORE All the WW Zero-Point Soups

Feeding a Sugar-Conscious Sweet Tooth

You too? We're cutting back on sweets without demonizing dessert, usually with smaller batches, smaller servings, shareable desserts or fruit desserts in addition to limiting frequency. But some times?

• THE RECIPE Shhh Banana Bread Delicious, low-fat banana bread.
• ANOTHER TAKE Cheery Cherry Banana Bread My first and favorite recipe for banana bread.

Timehop

Who else loves seeing old photos pop up, quick memories from years past? Welcome to a recipe timehop ...

• THE RECIPE Baked Cabbage Wedges Healthy cabbage slow-roasted with carrots and onion.
  
• ANOTHER TAKE Cabbage Noodles Ribbons of soft, silky cabbage, almost like pasta.

• THE RECIPE Nutrition GPA All-Day A+ Salad Five servings of veggies, legumes, 14 grams of protein, omega-3s and more.
• ANOTHER TAKE Quick 'n' Easy Raw Salad My own "healthy habit" that I hope will inspire yours, too.

Trending

My Top 10 Recipes are predictable, hello Should Cooked Pork Be Pink? and (Sloooow) Baked Potatoes (How Long to Bake a Baked Potato). But every week, seasonal recipes catch the internet's attention and start to trend.

• SAFETY TIPS How to Safely Purée Soups & Other Hot Liquids in a Blender Preventing big messes and bad burns.
• ANOTHER USEFUL IDEA How to Freeze Stock in Canning Jars

• THE RECIPE Quick Corn Soup with Coconut Milk Fast and flexible, all pantry ingredients.
• ANOTHER TAKE Paleo Carrot Soup A simple warm carrot soup, just enough fresh ginger, cardamom and coconut milk.

Something to Read

This week my book club finished a non-fiction book, notable for several reasons. We rarely take on non-fiction because:

• ... they don't seem to generate much discussion. Not so for The Splendid and the Vile.
• ... they don't always seem relevant to present times. Not so for The Splendid and the Vile.

Now I will say this: to a member, we found the book long and wished it were shorter – but also completely worth reading.

But author/journalist Erik Larson's books are all compelling. I make a point to read everything he writes.

• THE BOOKS (affiliate links)
• The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz, his most recent book, explores the political leadership and family life of Winston Churchill particularly during the Blitz of London early in World War II.
• In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin, the very readable non-fiction account of the family of William Dodd, the American ambassador to Germany during the rise of the Nazi party from about 1933 to 1937.


• MORE BOOK CLUB BOOK IDEAS My Reading Group's Book List since 1994!
• NO TIME TO READ? How I Read 4X More This Year Than Last What I gave up, how I read so much, what I read.

Just Updated!

• THE RECIPE Lemon-Honey Chicken Skillet A one-pot meal with a medley of spices and vegetables.
• ANOTHER TAKE Rainbow Chicken Chicken (no browning required) and vegetables baked in the oven.

• THE RECIPE Light & Fluffy Homemade Whole-Grain Bread & Buns The light and fluffy texture that so many people prefer.
• ANOTHER TAKE Soft Rolls for Sandwiches (NOLA-Style French Rolls) Especially for extra-good sandwiches, crispy crusts, soft interiors.

• THE RECIPE Cut-Out Spice Cookies My all-time year-round favorite cut-out cookie dough recipe.
• ANOTHER TAKE No-Chill Cutout Sugar Cookies Just mix and roll, no need to wait.

• THE RECIPE No-Chill Cutout Sugar Cookies Just mix and roll, no need to wait.
• ANOTHER TAKE No-Roll Christmas Sugar Cookies Quick and easy, chewy and buttery, colorful and festive.

Don't Be a Stranger ...

I'd love to hear from you. Comment, send me a quick e-mail via recipes@kitchen-parade.com, dot-dash in Morse code, build a fire for smoke signals, launch a message in a bottle, send a Christmas letter, get the dog to yip, toss me a note wrapped in a rubberband, write a message in the sky, scratch a note in the sand, listen to a seashell, tuck a question into a plastic Easter egg, whatever.

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Kitchen Parade is written by second-generation food columnist Alanna Kellogg and features fresh, seasonal dishes for every-day healthful eating and occasional indulgences. Quick Suppers are Kitchen Parade favorites and feature recipes easy on the budget, the clock, the waistline and the dishwasher. Do you have a favorite recipe that other Kitchen Parade readers might like? Just send me a quick e-mail via recipes@kitchen-parade.com. How to print a Kitchen Parade recipe. Never miss a recipe! If you like this recipe, sign up for a free e-mail subscription. If you like Kitchen Parade, you're sure to like my food blog about vegetable recipes, too, A Veggie Venture. If you make this recipe, I'd love to know your results! Just leave a comment below.

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