Cooking

One of the most nourishing things about food is the joyful memories it can evoke, connecting us through taste and aroma to comforting moments past.

If you tell me I’m full of beans today, I’ll take it as a compliment. Truth be told, I’ve been full of beans since last September, when the weather started to change. The onset of fall was all the excuse I needed to throttle up the dried bean express. I’ve prepared these three recipes seven times since, including this past weekend, so they’ve been thoroughly tested.

I was at a young, impressionable age when President George H.W. Bush made his somewhat tongue-in-cheek declaration to the press that “I do not like broccoli. And I haven’t liked it since I was a little kid and my mother made me eat it. And I’m president of the United States, and I’m not going to eat any more broccoli!”

As I watched fat, fluffy flakes dance outside my window last week during one of the first snowfalls of the year in Washington, I longed to be wrapped in a blanket on my couch, binging my latest television obsession and cradling a bowl of something warm to eat. Instead, I was prone in bed, down bad with some sort of cold (strep throat, I later discovered), watching shows only between the rounds of sleep my body forced upon me to try to recover.

“Are you sure you’re getting enough protein?”

After a few weeks of forcing herself to eat chicken breast and cottage cheese late in the evening despite not being the least bit hungry, Michelle Wilkes, 59, realized that counting protein grams was problematic for her. She started keeping track because she saw many wellness influencers on social media saying women her age needed to eat more protein. But when she found herself heading to the refrigerator solely to hit the “right” number, she knew that tracking grams was hurting her more than it was helping. “Anything that makes me overly focused on every single piece of food I put in my mouth makes me a little nuts,” she said.

Bibimbap is a riot of flavor: a bowl of rice and vegetables with maybe some meat and maybe an egg and probably a sauce that scratches an itch for umami, sweetness, tang and spice. This recipe for bibimbap is adapted from Seji Hong’s “Korean Made Easy,” a fantastic introduction to homestyle Korean cooking. Hong is the founder of BomBom sauces, a U.K.-based line of savory condiments.

SHINKAMIGOTO, Nagasaki – A town in Nagasaki Prefecture’s Goto Islands in autumn last year set up a new section devoted to the area’s specialty noodles, Goto udon.

I’ve had my air fryer for about a year and a half now. Back when I was first getting acquainted with the appliance, I used it to make all sorts of things: beautifully browned vegetables, fluffy baked potatoes, extra-crispy chicken wings and even apple hand pies for dessert. But since then, I’ve mostly used it to reheat leftovers and prepare frozen convenience foods, such as French bread pizzas and tater tots.

Here we are, approaching the end of yet another year and the arrival of a new one. I’m glad this is a food column, so I don’t have to recap the passing year’s major news events; people are distressed enough already. Food columns should generally be islands of refuge from all of that, so I’d better stick to discussing food today.

Celebrating the holidays usually involves an abundance of food: cheese platters galore, big Christmas dinners with a centerpiece of turkey or ham or Hanukkah parties overflowing with latkes, and of course piles of cookies, cakes and other desserts.

Fresh off the heels of one holiday feast, now we’re going all out baking cookies and preparing to make another spread for Christmas dinner. For the cooks and home entertainers among us, the act of feeding our loved ones and celebrating the joys of the season can be tiring. So once you’ve baked up this year’s holiday ham and stored the leftovers in the fridge, keep things simple the next day with this quick and easy stir-fry for lunch or dinner. (Or breakfast – who am I to limit when this can be eaten?)

No, there’s nothing new about baked brie. But sometimes novelty is overrated. There’s a reason that, per Google Trends, interest in the dish spikes annually during December: Baked brie is eye-catching, deliciously decadent and shockingly easy to prepare, all the makings of a holiday-party star. Traditionally enjoyed as an appetizer, baked brie can also be the main course for dinner, particularly when vegetables are alongside for nutritional balance.

An extra helping of energizing enthusiasm often accompanies the preparation of homemade snacks and desserts during the holiday season. More so, I think, than any other season of the year. Here are recipes for several, just in time for the Christmas week rush.

My husband and I started to call the holiday season “rest-mas” to embrace the idea of truly relaxing and restoring during this break from our usual routine. We have given ourselves a pass to avoid the frenzy of elaborate decorating, exchanging gifts or attending every event we get invited to.

Q: My husband asked me to make jalapeño cheddar cornbread muffins. I did a test batch with a simple recipe I found online, and they were delicious, but at least one-fourth stuck to the cupcake liners I used. I am thinking of trying again and just spraying the muffin tins this time. Any suggestions?

This is the time of year when Kate Sousa and her employees at Domestikated Biscuits are their busiest, making dozen after dozen of buttermilk biscuits, stuffed biscuits, scones, cinnamon rolls and more.

I was born and raised in the Appalachian Mountains, where intricate quilts were carefully displayed at local arts fairs or familiarly folded across a friend’s family couch. I grew up hearing about beloved ancestors who became storied textile artists and quilters in their day. There’s a power and a tenderness to the medium used to comfort and to preserve stories. This recipe became a fun and intimate way to honor the art I grew up around