Cold Weather Foods

It's wintertime here in the southern hemisphere, and unfortunately, cold weather makes me feel like eating my face off! I suddenly feel ravenous even though my workouts haven't changed. It's like my body wants to fatten up and hibernate, but I don't want to let it.

Does anyone else have this problem? Do you have any recipes/secrets for keeping wintertime hunger at bay? 

Oh we had such a tease that spring was here and all gentle (in Canada) and then "mwhahaha suckas!!!!"  ~ it turned all...REAL spring again, cold and raw and damp and windy....

So Yeah! I really saw it affect my appetite!  Another dear CC-er also turned me onto hot water bottles to cuddle up to.  But meanwhile, I started making a very guilt free snack out of celery and onion, and your choice of beet, parsnip, carrot, greens, rutabaga kind of stuff.  I put it in a pan with about .5 inch of water and some soysauce, let it boil away with lid on.  Be on close standby....(can toss bay leaf in there, or green curry paste, or lime juice, or seafood seasoning, or cumin or whatever, if so desired to add some "kick", but it's great without, too)  As veggies soften, take off the lid and as the water completely cooks out, the veggies and soysauce will hit the pan and start to carmelize.  SCRAPE (metalspatula, metal un-coated pans only) and add another splash of water...keep doing this "cooking-down" until the flavors have deepened and intensified to your satisfaction.  Very warming.

I also made fish and chunks o' tomato soup with similar zingy seasonings....this seafood seasoning I found has smoked paprika and a hint of orange in it....it's good with everything!

Clean protein stokes the fire.  Water-braised chicken cooked-down in a pan the same way, with the seasoning is so good.  I ate lots of tempeh with wasabi in soysauce, since it's nice to not overdo on the meat.  Protein bars....

Hot coffee with a goodly measure of cream or (sorry) whitener!  Coffee without the cream can just jag me out, making me eat like crazy just to level out, but with the cream, it seems to just satisfy the hunger blues.

Avocado on dense wholegrain toast, with some spicy paste or pesto underneath, and salt on top, with carrots on the side...has holding power

Or this pancake recipe...(forgive my plagiarizing, maybe "hungry girl" website?) that consists of 1 cup rolled oats mashed up with ......half a cup cottage cheese, 1 full tsp vanilla extract,  and 2 eggs.    Then you fold in 1 full cup blueberries, and fry with Pam spray.  I used a little low-calorie maple-flavor syrup spread on top.  The nice thing about them is they don't just keep sucking up your syrup so you can't taste it!  These are truly awesome pancakes!!!  and sooo healthy.  Thankyou  to the inventor!!!

Eggplant can be simply pierced and set on a cookie sheet in a hot oven for 50 minutes till it collapses.  Then you scrape out the innards and use a myriad ways....season it with east indian spices, or italian, or greek.  Eggplant is so lo-calorie!  Even better, toss some big cloves of garlic (still wrapped in peels) on the cookie sheet too (don't use small cloves of garlic, as they char) and they will turn into garlic toffees to smush up with the eggplant.  Add some chickpeas or tomatoes or greek yogurt....

I'm going to experiment with defatted peanut flour soon...

Hope some of this launches some ideas for you!

oh yeah, n' plain green tea!  You can develop a taste for it, if you haven't done so before.

Oatmeal is an option. I keeps my hunger at bay.

Right on, haunches!

Those are all good ideas and I can't wait to try them. I need to adjust myself because I had some really great summer salads going, and I loved eating them every day, but now they are (literally) leaving me cold.

I travel for work and I often wake up really early, so I'm going to try preparing some things in the evening (like buckwheat pancakes or oatmeal) that I can warm up in the morning. 

I like green tea but it tends to leave my stomach feeling empty. I will try to have it with some peanut butter toast or something tasty to fill the void.

It's funny but I think that long underwear and woolen socks will probably help me keep my hunger at bay. I've also heard that bananas and other potassium-rich foods can boost circulation and make you feel warmer. I'll try anything!

I live in the southern hemisphere too! I make lots of soup, and there's so many types that I never get bored. And I drink ridiculous amounts of tea (herbal and black). Drinking green tea helps me beat the hunger. 

And on occasions, we have lasagne or casserole, if I really can't beat my cravings!

Really spicy red lentil and tomato soup. Fills you right up, has TONS of fiber and is so amazingly warm and comforting.

Original Post by sparklystark:

cold weather makes me feel like eating my face off!

I absolutely understand that.  I definitely have to work harder to maintain in winter than I do in summer.

I suddenly feel ravenous even though my workouts haven't changed. It's like my body wants to fatten up and hibernate, but I don't want to let it.

I suspect that our bodies do, indeed, have a built in mechanism to do exactly that.

Does anyone else have this problem?

Yes.

Do you have any recipes/secrets for keeping wintertime hunger at bay?

I try to eat a lot of fruits and veggies, veggie soups, chilis, and stews, exercise a lot.  I try to eat a lot of filling things like veggie Steamers (vegetable blends prepackaged) and veggie stir fries.  I try to eat filling things that are not as high calorie.

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Basically, it is one heck of a challenge.  For me, the time from Halloween through Thanksgiving through Christmas through New Year's through the Super Bowl is an absolute eating-fest.

Good luck!

My go-to solution for winter-time eating is a bean/ bean-veg soup over rice (usually 1c soup + 1/2c rice). I use brown rice and use dried beans, so these meals tend to be high in fiber and low(er) in sodium compared to store brands.

We recently had a few rainy days so I tried an egg drop soup recipe that's in the most recent issue of Men's Health. Simple and really good, I think I can recall it from memory so here goes.

4 cups low sodium chicken broth

2 cups water

2 cups frozen shelled edamame

4 cups fresh baby spinach

4 eggs lightly beaten

green onions sliced thin-as many as you like

light soy sauce-chili oil-sesame oil to taste

Heat broth, water and soy sauce until it boils and reduce heat to simmer. Add edamame and simmer 2 min. Add spinach and stir a bit until it starts to wilt. Stir in eggs and and cook for a minute or so. Remove from heat. Spoon it into bowls and top with onions and season with the chili and sesame oil.

I loved it, roomy not so much. I could see adding chicken, noodles and baby corn to it to make it a one dish meal. As is I don't think the entire pot of soup was 1000 cal and it was a lot of food. I ate 2 bowls and the roomy ate 2 before we tossed 2/3 of what was left. I doubted it would be good reheated, the eggs and spinach would break down.

Soup!

Broth-based soups with lots of vegetables are warm, filling, can be healthy if you make them yourself, and have manageable calorie levels.  I love Lebanese lentil soup with lots of lemon and cumin myself.  (This isn't my recipe but it's probably very close.)

Get some mashed vege into you! Softened cauliflower mashes (or blends) down into a super tasty mash, add a little bit of potato for texture, and you'd never really tell the difference.

Pumpkin, kumara (sweet potato), carrot, parsnip, swede - they're all way lower cals and mash down into something delicious! Add garlic and herbs to it for a flavour kick. I find the butter flavour comes through more strongly when I add it too, so only need a tiny amount.

Yeah, I enjoy some kumara (you must be kiwi!) and pumpkin roasted with cinnamon and a dash of brown sugar. I will try mashing. These are all good ideas. 

I've also enjoyed making tofu jerky, which is filling and full of protein with a reasonable number of calories. I just soak slices of tofu in a mixture of soy, orange juice and brown sugar, then bake it in the oven at low temp for about an hour. Afterward I can eat it plain or use it in a stir fry.

I think what my body is craving is fatty/chewy things so this fits the bill without being too "expensive" calorie-wise.

I am winning the war. Keep the suggestions coming!