Cool Foods

Tonight we had homemade chili for dinner--and of course, that means that we have enough left over to supplement two more meals: one tamale dinner, and one hot dog dinner.

Since the cooler temperatures got here, we've been making a lot more of my favorite "cool weather" meals, and it made me realize how much I prefer fall and winter--not only because of the temperatures, but also because of the foods that we tend to make during those season. So now, in no particular order, my favorite "cool foods."

(1) Chili
(2) Irish stew (somewhere in these pages I posted Mom's recipe for that, in fact)
(3) Homemade chicken noodle soup
(4) Susan's spaghetti and meat sauce (we have a number of different pasta recipes, but Susan's original spaghetti and meat sauce recipe--the one we've used for 38 years now--is still a cold weather favorite)
(5) Homemade vegetable soup (which we really should call vegetable beef soup, since we add a little beef to the recipe for flavor) and cornbread
(6) Turkey and dressing (I could eat it every week)
(7) Meat loaf (best served with Jamaican Hellfire Sauce, although Susan would vigorously disagree)

And the added benefit for all of these? They either add heat or humidity to the kitchen/great room area, a detriment in the summer but an asset in the fall and winter, when central eat is likely to dry out the air.