Marcella Hazan's Bolognese Sauce

What a strange and scary time we live in.

Thoughts running through my head:

• If I'm practicing social distancing but not everyone else is doing their part, can we stop the spread?
• How can people be so selfish, re: those who continue to head to the park or beach or throw coronavirus parties?
• Will things ever get back to "normal"?

When I can't read the news anymore, I turn to cooking for comfort. The plus side of being stuck at home is the leisure of trying out recipes, things I've been meaning to make but never got around to.

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Chicken Noodle Soup

We're deep into soup season.

I made a delicious ribollita a couple of weeks ago, but chicken noodle is the soup I crave for to keep me warm during the many, many snowstorms.

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Maple Roasted Delicata Squash with Quinoa

Move over, peaches and tomatoes, we're deep into apples and squash season.

I'm a huge fan of delicata squash because the skin is edible, hence no peeling required for people who are lazy like me. I wish they were more readily available at grocery stores.

Roasting squash is my go-to technique, as the squash gets caramelized in the oven. I love tossing grains right onto the baking sheet of the roasted vegetable because it takes on the flavour of the caramelized squash.

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Ratatouille

The end of summer means an abundance of ripe tomatoes, sweet peppers, eggplant and zucchini. These vibrant, multicoloured vegetables go beautifully together, both visually and gastronomically.

Ratatouille is an easy dish to throw together - a one pot meal, which is my favourite kind of meal. I've seen recipes where you roast each vegetable separately (!) before they are combined, which seems like an unnecessary amount of dishes and time. Perhaps the flavours are more concentrated when you roast the vegetables separately, though I find this recipe makes a scrumptious stew using seasonal, ripe vegetables.

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Quinoa Tabbouleh

As spring slowly makes its appearance (we're so close to actual spring weather!), I start to crave for lighter meals.

I had a bunch of parsley in the fridge that needed to be used up and tabbouleh sprang into my mind. Instead of the traditional bulgur, I used quinoa as the grain, though I have also used couscous in the past.

I've never been a fan of raw onion because I found it to be too peppery. Recently, I learned the trick where if you soak your cut onion in cold water for 10 minutes, it tames the flavour and makes the onion crispier.

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