Seasonal Menu Ideas for Winter

Although spring has made a few tentative appearances, we are very much still in the heart of winter. If you're running out of ideas about what to put on the dinner table or how to use your preserves from other seasons, Carla Emery's got a few menus to keep everyone full, warm, and satisfied! And, of course, they only use homemade, home-cooked, and seasonal ingredients.

Winter Suppers

1. Boiled sliced turnips; roast and gravy; baked potatoes; pickles; bread and butter; junket pudding

2. Elk roast and gravy; sage dressing; baked squash; spinach; mashed potatoes; mincemeat cookies

3. Pork chops; gravy; boiled peas; yeast biscuits; boiled potatoes

4. Steak and gravy; mashed potatoes; cole slaw with homemade dressing; cream-style corn; crumb bread and cherry jelly; canned apricots

5. Stew made with meat, tomatoes, carrots, cabbage; raw turnip slices dipped in herbed sour cream

6. Leftover sliced cold roast; bread and apple pudding; mashed boiled turnips

Snacks

Snacks are for company, for husband or children famished between meals, for an afternoon tea break or a bedtime family treat. Lots of old-time farm families have a regular midmorning and mid-afternoon mini-meal for the working men in summer, when they are putting in long days. Maybe we take sandwiches and a gallon of cold tea out to the field and the work stops for a few minutes. I blacklisted store-bought cookies, potato chips, pop, and candy. But I don't fight snacks that are home-grown and home-prepared: fresh, canned, or frozen fruit; dried fruit; pickles; popcorn; homemade popsicles; homemade crackers; jerky; bread with homemade jam or honey. Leftovers like cold sliced roast or cold boiled potatoes are good with some salt or butter. My husband Mike doesn't like to eat leftovers, except potatoes and meat, so if somebody doesn't snack them up, the chickens or pigs get them- except for bread, which metamorphoses into bread pudding or lunch dishes that I serve when it's just me and the children.