This winter, so far, has been more than a little unusual. It’s been strange to be in New England looking at weather maps and watching everywhere from Pittsburgh to Washington, D.C., and even the deep south get inches upon inches of snow as we sit here looking at bare earth and brown trees. But I can’t complain too much, as the roads have been perfectly clear! And, hey, it’s still cold, so perfect beef stew weather.

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These days, I order most of my spices from Penzey’s, and a big thank you to Alton Brown and Good Eats for introducing me to this place. Penzey’s has pretty much every spice you can imagine, and I can really taste the difference between the quality in their spices and those that I pick up at the grocery store. I also appreciate the great prices that they have on bulk spices like ground ginger, cinnamon, and chili powder, which I seem to use by the bucketful.

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Though I have yet to find a great gluten free recipe for burger buns — I’m working on it — I still enjoy a tasty burger. I’ve been experimenting more with ground chicken and turkey, and these chicken burgers with spinach and caramelized oinions have definitely earned their place on my “make again” list. The spinach and onions not only keep the meat nice and moist, but they also bump up the flavor. Add more caramelized onions and a little cheese on top, some rosemary thyme oven fries on the side, and you’ve got a winner!

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We return to that magical June 2009 issue of Bon Appetit for this recipe for a “15 minute” spicy orange chicken. Now, I don’t know about 15 minutes — unless they weren’t including prep time — but this is still a very quick recipe compared to my regular go to orange chicken recipe. No messy breading, no deep frying, just a simple orange chicken with a nice flavor payoff for something that takes so little time. I think that it would be even better if you added some garlic and a little fresh ginger.

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I’m always looking for easy weeknight meals, and this beef stir fry fits the bill nicely. Marinating the beef actually takes longer than making the dish once the beef is ready to cook. I like to take the 30 minutes while the beef is marinating to prepare my mis en place. About twenty minutes into the marinating process, I start the rice so it will be ready at the same time as the stir fry. I took a shortcut in using a frozen Asian medley vegetable blend to add to the peppers, which saved me a good amount of prep time.

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I had an ambitious plan to make the best coconut rice that I’ve ever tasted and, unfortunately, it failed miserably. Well, the rice itself wasn’t so bad, but about half of it ended up burnt and stuck to the bottom of the pan. Oh well, I suppose I shouldn’t complain, as I’ve had pretty good luck when it comes to making rice on the stovetop. You have to expect some failures sometimes. The rice that I was able to scrape from the pan was good, but it definitely wasn’t the tastiest coconut rice that I’ve ever had, so I’m not going to include the recipe here. Now, when I finally do make the tastiest coconut rice ever, you’ll be the first to know.

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