Dinners from the darkest days of Winter

I just got back from a two-week trip to Oregon, where the flowers are blooming and Spring is in full swing. In the meantime, most of the snow here has melted, leaving a few piles of old, dirty, icy slop and unearthing last Fall's soggy, rotting leftover leaves and garbage. It's by far the ugliest time of year. I would post a picture, but you would lose your appetite, and this is a food blog, not a whining about Winter blog. The upshot is that I haven't uploaded all of the pictures from my trip yet, so here are a few things I've made over the past few months.



I've said it before - Winter squash is one of the few highlights of a Midwest Winter. Butternut is one of my favorites. Roasting it really concentrates the flavor - just put a little olive oil on the cut surfaces and it'll get crispy and caramelized. After roasting, add to sauteed onions and garlic (or roast those along with the squash for a deeper flavor), maybe some white beans, sage, salt, pepper, broth or water, and whatever else you like, cook together for a while, then puree. This soup always makes me feel a little less bad about being a shut-in once Winter has gone on just a bit too long.



I also picked up some fava beans from Holy Land at some point, and made a couple things with them. I don't buy them much, but I really love the flavor and at some point plan to look up some more authentic Middle Eastern recipes that use them.



I cooked the beans with onions and garlic (of course) and some greens, and seasoned it with thyme and sumac. It turned out really well - the sumac is nice and tart, and adds a unique flavor that I think went well with the favas. Then apparently the next day I thought it would be a good idea to cook the rest of my greens with an entire onion.



I got ambitious one night and made some simple chick pea crepes and a tofu-tomato filling. They turned out great, but unfortunately all my ambition must have been spent, because I couldn't seem to take a decent picture. Sorry for the blurry close-up.



I didn't use much of a recipe for the crepes, just added a mix of chick pea flour and white flour to water with a little salt, pepper, turmeric, and maybe garlic powder, then let it sit for about 20 minutes, then cook them sort of like thin pancakes, flipping once. The filling was just sauteed onion, garlic, tomato sauce, and tofu.



Stay tuned for a write-up of some food eaten in Eugene and Portland, including the much-anticipated Minneapolis-Portland brunch-off! Hint: Portland might win.