The team at Ryland Peters & Small has knack for producing cookbooks you want to embrace in a flash. I’ve already commented on their volume Comfort Food:
This book, Fireside Feasts & Snow Day Treats, is an expansion of Comfort Food containing some of the same recipes but so many more.
The recipes here — true comfort foods all — are organized by chapters featuring the time of day or the stage of the meal.
Snow Day Snacks offers ideas for nibbling that could be a modest lunch or just inspire you for another ski run. Here you’ll find:
- Creamy Pancetta and Onion Tart
- Cheddar and Cider Fondue
- Baked Goat Cheese with Herbed Ciabatta Croutons and Winter Fruit Salad.
Cold Day Comforts are dishes that can serve as a full and most satisfying meal:
- French Onion Soup
- Corn and Pancetta Chowder
- Ham and Blue Cheese Gratin
- Mashed Potato Pie with Bacon Leeks and Cheese
- Smoked Trout Hash with Horseradish Cream.
Fireside Feasts offers bigger and richer meals, ideal for a special dinner:
- Chicken Pot Pie with Tarragon and Leeks
- Steak Leek and Mushroom Pie with Guinness
- Tamale Pie
- Spicy Pork Stew with Sweet Potatoes and Beans
- Thai Red Beef Curry.
Winter Salads suggests ways to brighten those short winter days with veggie freshness. The recipes here offer flavor through complexity and ingenuity:
- Pear and Parmesan Salad with Endive and Walnuts
- Roasted Butternut Squash with Spiced Lentils and Goat Cheese
- Slow Cooked Lamb Salad with Beans and Pomegranate and Fresh Mint
- Spanish Bread Salad with Chickpeas and Chorizo
- Hot Smoked Salmon and Cannellini Bean Salad with Gremolta.
Indulgent Treats make sure your sweet tooth is not neglected. And on winter days, we all could use a few fuel calories. The recipes here offer a distinctly British dessert perspective:
- Hazelnut Cheesecake Bars
- Rhubarb Custard and Crumble Tartlets
- Pecan and Bourbon Tartlets
- Pumpkin and Cinnamon Strudel.
A Cup of Cheer suggests beverages deep with flavor to bring winter cheer. The entries here, like the Rosemary Milk, reflect the English love for the herbs lingering in their garden:
- Harvest Punch, featuring cider + spices
- Catalan Coffee Punch
- Marshmallow Chocolate Melt
- Rosemary Milk
I’m posting this on a Friday from NYC where a Winter Storm Warning is in effect for the next day. Snow, sleet, and freezing rain. Ordinarily, we’d be leaving the city for a weekend in the Catskills. Why travel when the snow is coming to us? We do have time to dash to the store and stock up. We already have plenty of perfect recipes, for we have Fireside Feasts and Snow Day Treats. I don’t care if we get 2 inches or 2 feet.
Actually, I do.