Slightly Off Center

https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/some-cold-weather-holiday-food

Actual scientific work is definitely slowing down around here as the holidays approach. As I often do, I wanted to (re)post some recipes of foods that go well with the season (or perhaps with cold weather in general). I've rounded up a few new photos of the results as well! All of these are synthesized regularly here at Pipeline HQ, and I can personally vouch for all of them after long experience. If you'd like to see the whole range of recipes posted here over the years, this page (and the ones following it) should bring them up!

First off, some desserts. I think the first recipe I posted here (some years ago!) was for chocolate pecan pie, and I still get emails about it. Here's a canonical version, and the result of this year's repeat is shown at left. This one got a bit dark on the top, but it was (like all the others) consumed vigorously. In recent years I've added the recipe for cranberry-lime pie, also shown at right, which has a pH-driven color shift midway through the preparation. The chocolate pecan pie accomplishes many things, but it does not change color.

I have also made a batch of these gingersnaps, which get takers both in the earlier soft-cookie part of their lifespan and in the "snappier" phase later on. That's a shot of today's batch, actually.

This next recipe may not sound so much like cold-weather food, because it depends on summer blackberries. But the great thing about cobblers is that they work identically with fresh or with frozen berries, and I have a weighed one-cobbler-quantity bag of blackberries that my wife and I picked last September waiting for the right moment. A commercial bag of them will do the trick, too, and is a lot better than going without blackberry cobbler at all. A batch with biscuit-style topping is shown at right. 

If you're not put off by the idea of a more summery dessert in December (apologies to the Southern Hemisphere folks; you're ready to roll by now!) then you could also try the key lime pie, or even the lime sorbet. I'm not quite ready for that second one myself this time of the year, but the only lime sorbet I've had that competes with it is from Berthillon in Paris (no worries, they have me beaten on everything else!) If it's your sort of thing you have to give it a try at some point, because it's unstoppable. 

Now to some good stuff to eat before you get to the desserts! A classic dish for cold temperatures is French onion soup, and that recipe is my take on it. A recent effort is shown at left. As many of you no doubt already realize, a lot of online recipes grievously misstate the amount of time that it takes the caramelize the onions for this one. Now, this is not an all-day lashed-to-the-stove job, but neither will it be done in the breezy ten or fifteen minutes that some people insist is enough. But if you have some beef stock and chicken stock (or can buy some!) that is really the only labor-intensive part of the whole thing.

Another good cold-weather dish is chicken paprikash, and that recipe makes appearances around here in the wintertime. With noodles and some sour cream, it's pretty hearty stuff. Similarly robust is this chicken pot pie, shown at right, which differs from its commercial counterparts in many ways, the first being that it contains no potatoes whatsoever.

Staying with the chicken theme, we made a batch of this chicken-noodle-and-corn soup here just the other night, and I've been making it for over thirty years and can testify to its healing powers. The original recipe, being Pennsylvania Dutch, has saffron in it, but in our household saffron is reserved for the Iranian side of the menu (!) So if you try it that way, let me know.

Here's a beef dish that takes a bit of preparation, but odds are you've never had it before, since it's mostly seen in Germany and adjacent areas: rindsrouladen. This one I haven't made in a while, but it always reminds me of my father's cooking, since he made once in a while while my brother and I were growing up. During my post-doc in Germany I ordered it and found that the local version was identical in all ways with his preparation, which I was glad to report back to him!

Here's a side dish that (since I'm from Arkansas) I consider to go with most anything: cornbread (show at left, in a prep from the extensive Pipeline kitchens). You can (as the recipe indicates) add corn kernals, chopped onion, diced green chiles, cheese, or all sorts of other stuff to take it in a savory direction. Or you can make it plain and have it with whatever jam or preserves you wish! This is a Southern-style cornbread, that is to say Not Sweet And Cakey, so if you want sweetness you'll have to bring it along yourself at serving time.

OK, that should be enough to get us all through a few days, at least. I'll be pretty quiet here this week, but blogging intermittently until the beginning of 2026. I'd like to wish everyone a happy and healthy holiday season, whichever ones you might celebrate. And if your celebration just includes whipping up some good food and having some people sit down and eat it with you, then consider yourself fortunate and enjoy. That's what I do, and I try never to forget the "fortunate" part.

https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/some-cold-weather-holiday-food