I have to write a grocery list this morning, and it's making me fretful. My husband - he's back! hooray! - has offered very kindly to run to the grocery store on his lunch break and all I have to do is send him a list of groceries by 11, which is in 45 minutes. This should NOT be a big deal.
My husband was away this weekend at a church retreat and I was startled by how quickly I slipped into lazier eating habits. Without him here, the urge to make FAMILY dinners evaporated and we lived on frozen pizza and frozen lasagna and bagged salads, which are nice in a pinch but not the way I'd like to eat for the rest of my life. This three day vacation from real cooking was nice, but now I find myself yearning to REALLY cook, to make beautiful spring foods. The snow is still deep and the air is still cold, but something smells like spring and suddenly I know that winter WON'T last forever, which is the opposite of how I felt last week, this grim resignation to being chilled and bundled up forever. Now I feel like eating lemons and asparagus and going on a diet and swearing off my morning hot chocolate because spring actually WILL come, sooner or later.
The foods that promise comfort in late winter, that post-Christmas time, are a familiar crew - stews and baked pasta and molasses cookies and the smell of bread cooking in a kitchen as you come in half-frozen from some horrible storm. Summer foods are also easy to think of - a fresh tomato salad, corn on the cob, hamburgers sizzling on a grill - but the food of early spring is stumping me. It's not REAL spring yet, so the fresh rhubarb and asparagus are still weeks away, but something in me has cheered up considerably and I want this week's cooking to reflect that, to turn towards the hope for spring. Now all I have to do is to take this idea and translate it into a week's worth of meal plans, turn THAT into a grocery list and email it off to my husband, easy-peasy.
Is this a general phenomenon? Are you feeling like eating lighter, springlike foods now, or are you still wanting a hot bowl of stew? And what foods say spring to you, what do you want to cook when the snow suddenly starts magically melting away?
I find myself doing the same thing when the hubby is away. I always buy the easy meals when he is gone so I can just pop them in the oven. hehe
I really don't know what spring food (maybe grilled chicken?) is, but I am still in winter mode here. We are expecting yet another snow storm, so I guess I'll just stick to stew. :(
When I hear spring food, I picture some sort of pink, fluffy cupcake. Or one of those Easter ones with the jelly beans and the gross dyed-green coconut. As for healthier foods, well, all I can think of is fruit salad and chicken salad on croissants, one of my favorite lunches. Yum.
I always think ham, roasted asparagus. I'm not quite into the springtime food thinking. I'm sure it will hit me soon though.
I know. The winter brings that need to eat rich heavy foods and spring makes you want something light and airy. Aside from the evil thing I commented over on your homepage.
I agree with Susanne - cupcakes. I don't know why, but thinking of early spring makes me picture little yellow cupcakes with pink frosting. I don't even eat cupcakes (well, every once in awhile, I'm only human. And to be human means eating cupcakes (apparently)). Anything pink. Or yellow. Or fluffy. That's spring.
We had ribs and coleslaw last night and it felt springish to me. The coleslaw was fabulous--from America's Test Kitchen--I think it was called Buttermilk Coleslaw.
I am so experiencing Spring Fever .... So glad not to be alone.
I have a very light spring stew recipe with chicken, new potatos and carrots... I'll have to forward that one to you!
There is a storm coming later today so it feels stubbornly winterish around here.
Spring makes me think of fiddleheads and tender stalks of asparagus, mostly. Spring is also when I start to yearn for more variety in fruit choices and look forward to fresh local strawberries, even though they won't appear until June. Still, I know what you mean about tiring of the comfort food. I'm making pulled pork in the slow cooker for dinner tonight and I don't really even want to eat another hearty, saucy meal. I suspect that, somehow, I will choke it down.
Spring food? I think of spinach salad with mandarin orange slices, veggies & dip instead of a cooked vegetable and grilled salmon.
I always think of greens (turnips, collards, kale) and white fish for this time of year. But what do I know, I just ate popcorn and blueberries for lunch!
There's a spring pasta with asparagus (or peas if you like), chunks of ham, pasta and fresh mozzarella - light and yummy. It has a lemon dressing, I think. I'll have to check that.
I do feel spring in the air, and the need to open a window and light flower-scented candles and such. But the weather is crazy and every other day seems to be cold again, and sometimes rainy. It's hard to think winter food, but then when it's cold that's what I want, so I'm trying to do both. Might as well.
The only spring thing I can think of is salad. ? Baby greens, maybe that's why.
Lemon cake makes me think of spring, and jasmine tea, too.
Hmmm...I'm stumped.
I still want hot foods and drinks to warm me up. Except baby lettuces, I have no idea what spring food is either,unless you count what you might normally eat on Easter?
For some reason, I am surprised that you have bagged salads. I guess I thought you lived so far in the boondocks that they didn't have it....I was wrong. :)
I DO feel like eating spring foods but not because I can feel spring in the air (I most definitely CANNOT feel spring in the air and it's getting me down in a big way - 10-15 cm of snow coming tomorrow). Mostly I'm just sick of the lasagne and mac & cheese and lentils & rice and cauliflower & potatoes that we've been eating ALL winter long. We celebrate spring with potato salads, pasta salads, veggie burgers with fresh tomatoes, and asparagus. I am beginning to think it will never come.
Even though I don't eat it: Lamb. Like a lamb roast.
And asparagus.
Those little baby red-skinned potatoes boiled and done up with butter and fresh chives and other herbs.
Spinach salad.
Fish - A nice fish boil with a white fish, some potatoes, onions and a nice green salad as a side.
Lighter soups made with homemade stock.
Cabbage.
Haricot vert.
Baby carrots. (Inspired by all those baby bunnies!)
Goat cheese on toast done up under the broiler.
Hot tea with loads of lemon. And honey.
Chicken baked with garlic and rosemary.
Lemon poppyseed muffins.
Coconut cakey.
Okay I have now succeeded in making myself very hungry.
I may have to post a little about this myself later today, because I can SO relate to how you're feeling right now! All I want to do is put on my Macintosh and my rain boots and go out and splash in earthwormy puddles beside fragrant banks of daffodils and get a red, runny nose and come back inside and eat hot, yummy, springy foods and drink hot tea and cuddle my Bean up and read book after book until we both doze off all warm and cozy. Too bad there are still 6 inches of snow on the ground and another 8 to 10 due today. We'll have to make do with tea, cuddles and books for now. Which, come to think of it, ain't a bad deal.
xoxo
I do the same thing when my husband is gone. Pasta and peas for the kids. I began to feel guilty since I obviously only cook real meals for him. ;-)
I can't think of any better suggestions for spring food than the earlier commenters gave. When the weather is warmer I like salads (green & pasta) and fresh vegetables and strawberries.
I have one word - Peeps!
No really, Spring makes me think of ham (of course!) and my Mom's spinach salad - yummy! Oh and carrots, I guess cause bunnies eat carrots...
My diet has been terrible lately. Yesterday I ate two bowls of cereal, an apple with cheese and later some veggie chips with baby carrots and hummus followed by a cupcake (okay, two cupcakes). Not the healthiest or most balanced day but it was what I could lazily drag from the kitchen to the couch. I can definitely relate to lazy solo eating habits.
For me, spring has arrived when I can go out and clip the first green chives to stir into soft scrambled eggs. Simple and fresh.
Gosh, I don't know what I think of when I think of spring food. Lots of fruit, mainly--we tend to go crazy with the fruit this time of the year--berries and things like that.
Lots of salads, new potatoes, lighter soups?
I. Need. Sunshine.
Fruit salad, lemonade, green salads, barbecque... Yum.
So still stuck in the chili/stew/casserole mode. Until I get rid of this cold, the comfort food is hitting the spot!
i so hear you right now! something in the air today said "SPRING" and i came home not wanting to prepare the pasta i had earlier intended. we made burgers (in the oven b/c the bbq is frozen!) with a big salad - one of our regular summer meals - and it was a fun change from the usual meals we've been having lately.
Thai peanut salad: noodles tossed with snow peas, cucumber spears, red pepper slices, a tasty home-made peanut sauce (email me if you'd care for a recipe). This dish is still substantial (winter) but it is served at room temp and features raw veggies that burst with water. It's a perfect spring dish.
dunno. i'm still mired in winter. tomorrow is likely to be our FOURTH snow day in two weeks. grr...
Spring foods....I'm not there yet although I did see some Canadian Geese and then I heard some birds chirp today when I was out dragging my child around....I felt like dancing...except that I didn't because I am every white dancing stero-type ever!
Well, its spring time over here in Singapore all the time. So I'm not too sure if I answer this right. Hey, anything that can be eaten outdoor, isn't that nice? Like bbq, grilling stuff, I don't know. But burgers are all time favourite too.
I'm sorry but I'm really not into springtime thinking right now, as we're getting even more snow...when will it ever end??!! My husband is away tonight, so the kids and I will probably be eating something quick and easy, like soup and sandwiches.
Mmmm...molasses cookies. And I haven't yet given up my morning cocoa, and some days it's already getting into the low eighties here.
I've been day-dreaming about coconut cake recently...
Spring for me means the BBQ reappears...lots of grilled veggies and chicken. Since we are getting a pile of snow today I will have to settle for a nice large salad and the turkey chili I made yesterday filled with beans and veggies.
Well, I think our dinner last night was a combination of springy flavors, but still wintery in that comforting, hearty way. I kind of emptied the fridge...made a risotto with onions, garlic, white wine, mushrooms, shrimp, roasted asparagus, and naturally, lots of parmesan cheese. It turned out great.
Well I WAS beginning to think Spring was coming since we'd gone a whole FIVE days without snow...but then...it happened. Overnight, we're back to Winter Wonderland (SO SICK of Winter Wonderland). Which means, we're also back to wanting nothing but soup and stew and anything casserole-y.
Spring means fresh baby greens with homemade dressing...and anything with coconut! Yum!
What about a lighter, vegetable brothy kind of soup? Seems to me that could be a stretcher. After all, even if the calendar says March, and even though we will be celebrating Easter in March, it's not really Spring.
Potato salad, baked beans, pasta salads, cucumbers, cherry and cream cheese sandwiches, grape and walnut salad, grilled chicken, lemon ice box thingies, and strawberry shortcake. Spring, please come soon.
easter will com soon and there will hot cross buns and hard boiled eggs and chocolate.
I have no spring urges yet whatsoever, but it usually creeps up on my when I can no longer where my spring t-shirts and pants.
Over the weekend I had spring fever bad! In that state I search many catalogues and dream how I would redecorate our house if I only had the spare cash, the time, and the will to actually do all the work myself. Okay so maybe I'm talking not just a redecoration but a major renovation. Perhaps new Swedish kitchen cupboards are a do it yourself project but what if you want to move the sink? That would require a plumber (been there, done that - not doing that again). So after trying various layouts using online kitchen remodeling planners I tried to narrow my sights on our little bedroom. A little paint and a new comforter would go a long way in there! I even got as far as pulling some of the loose pale floral wall paper off the one wall revealing the "hideous" orange paint underneath all while talking on the phone. Four days later and I haven't got back to striping the paper. Thankfully the lights are generally out when we are in there!