Two Easy Winter Meal Ideas To Make This Week

Today I’m sharing two easy winter meal ideas to add to your menu this week, plus my simple sourdough bread recipe!

I’m always looking for new ideas. Sometimes we get stuck doing the same meals over and over again. So today I am sharing a few easy winter meal ideas that I shared on YouTube a year or so ago. You are always asking me for recipes, so I made some easy recipe cards to follow!

These easy winter meal ideas have become staples in my home, and I’m always looking for ways to change up the recipe just a bit each time I make them. Is anyone else an experimenter in the kitchen? I’ll maybe follow a recipe once, but after that I’m just eyeballing everything and adding or changing things haha

However, I know many of you like to follow a recipe to a T, so you can find recipe cards for each meal below. I hope you enjoy these easy winter meal ideas!

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Easy Winter Meal Ideas: Simple Sourdough Bread

One of the thing that I like to do is make a loaf of sourdough bread for the boys to eat at mealtimes. If you’ve been following me for a while, you know that I have a mild gluten allergy, my husband Mike and my four boys are big lovers of bread so I make them a fresh loaf almost every week.

I got a beautiful oval Dutch oven for Christmas a few years ago, and I love it! It’s been great for me to bake my bread in. I highly recommend using a dutch oven for sourdough bread. Baking in a dutch oven really gives you that golden, crispy crust and springy dough center.

As you can see this bread turned out absolutely beautiful in this Dutch oven it always does. This recipe is a very simple sourdough bread recipe; nothing too complicated and it’s just always been successful for me so you’ll have to give it a try if you enjoy sourdough!

5 from 4 votes

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Simple Sourdough Bread in a Dutch Oven

Super simple sourdough bread recipe that anyone can make!

Course Side Dish

Cuisine American

Keyword bread recipe, simple, simple bread recipe, simple sourdough, sourdough bread recipe

Prep Time 6 hours

Cook Time 1 hour

Servings 12 Slices

Ingredients

• 1/4 Cup Active Sourdough Starter
• 1 1/2 Cup Warm Filtered Water
• 4 1/2 Cup All Purpose Flour
• 1 1/2 Tsp Sea Salt

Instructions

1. In a mixing bowl, add your flour and salt. Dissolve your sourdough starter in the warm water until it is dissolved completely and add it to your flour and salt mixture

2. Mix all of the ingredients thoroughly until your dough is formed, cover with a damp towel and let rest for 30 minutes

3. Pull sections of your dough away from the main portion to fold and activate the dough on all four sides

4. Cover your dough with a damp towel and set aside to allow it to rise for a minimum of 6 hours

5. Once your dough has risen a minimum of 6 hours, remove your dough from the mixing bowl onto a floured surface

6. Shape the dough by folding four different sides again into the center of your dough and let your dough rest 10-15 minutes

7. Place the dough into a bowl lined with a floured towel or banneton cover and let rise an additional 60 minutes

8. Preheat your oven to 450 degrees

9. Once your dough has risen an additional 60 minutes, cover with parchment paper and flip your bowl upside down, dropping your dough onto the paper

10. Take a sharp knife or bread lame and score your bread

11. Take all four corners of the parchment paper to lift your dough and place it into the dutch oven covered. Bake for 30 minutes.

12. After 30 minutes, uncover and bake an additional 20 minutes.

13. After 20 minutes, remove loaf from dutch oven onto a cooling rack

14. Let finished loaf rest for an hour, serve and enjoy!

Orange Coconut Aminos Chicken and Rice Bowl

Whenever we cook any type of Asian cuisine, you can put together a delicious marinade. I know a lot of people use soy sauce, but when I was on Whole 30 a good, healthy alternative is actually coconut aminos! You can get them just about anywhere so that’s what we use now. I’ve never gone back to soy sauce.

I use a juiced an orange for this recipe. You could even use pineapple juice, but I’m juicing an orange. I’m going to add a little bit of orange juice, maple syrup, some coconut aminos, a little bit of broth that I had in the fridge, salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, and some minced garlic as well, and then you just kind of taste it. I usually eyeball everything, and if you feel like it needs to be sweeter, you can add more maple syrup or honey. If you want more of that soy flavor, you can add more coconut aminos, but this marinade is so delicious!

After I make the marinade, I cut up some chicken and brown it in a pan with a couple tablespoons of butter, some olive oil, salt, and pepper. You can season your chicken as well. Once the chicken is all cooked through, you can see I have some rice cooking, as well as some steamed vegetables on the back burner.

Once your chicken is browned, sprinkle a couple tablespoons of flour over it. I use gluten free because of my gluten allergy. Brown that up for a minute or two, then pour that marinade on top of your chicken and let it come to a simmer. It gets thick and delicious, and then you can mix in all of your vegetables into the sauce. You have a delicious meal that you can put over a bowl of white rice, which is what we like to do. You can finish it off with a little bit of raw honey and sesame seeds, but it’s just a really quick meal that comes together easily!

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Orange Coconut Aminos Chicken Rice Bowls

Prep Time 15 minutes

Cook Time 20 minutes

Total Time 35 minutes

Ingredients

For the Chicken & Marinade

• 1½ lbs boneless skinless chicken breasts cut into bite-size pieces
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• Salt and pepper to taste

Marinade/Sauce

• ½ cup fresh orange juice about 1 large orange
• ¼ cup coconut aminos
• 2 tablespoons maple syrup or honey
• ¼ cup chicken broth
• 2 cloves garlic minced
• ½ teaspoon garlic powder
• ½ teaspoon onion powder
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 2 tablespoons flour gluten-free or all-purpose

For Serving

• 3 cups cooked white rice
• 2 cups steamed vegetables broccoli, carrots, etc.
• Raw honey for drizzling (optional)
• Sesame seeds optional

Instructions

1. In a small bowl, whisk together orange juice, coconut aminos, maple syrup, broth, minced garlic, garlic powder, onion powder, salt, and pepper. Taste and adjust sweetness or saltiness as desired.
2. Heat butter and olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat.
3. Season chicken with salt and pepper and cook until browned and cooked through.
4. Sprinkle flour over the chicken and cook for 1–2 minutes, stirring to coat.
5. Pour marinade over the chicken and bring to a simmer. Cook until sauce thickens, about 3–5 minutes.
6. Stir in steamed vegetables.
7. Serve over warm white rice. Drizzle with raw honey and sprinkle with sesame seeds if desired.

Hamburger Gravy with Mashed Potatoes and Green Beans

I peeled some potatoes and chopped those up to make mashed potatoes, and I’ve got some ground beef thawing in the sink. All I’m going to do is brown that ground beef in a cast iron skillet with some chopped onion, and once it’s all nice and brown, I’m going to add a couple tablespoons of flour. You can see I’ve got some frozen green beans on the back burner with some red onion that I cut up.

I’m going to add a couple of tablespoons of gluten free flour to the meat, kind of like I did with the chicken. This is a great way to thicken a sauce or a gravy, and then I’m going to add some beef broth. After cooking the flour for a minute or two, I’ll add the beef broth to the ground beef. I will stir it and bring it to a simmer until that broth gets nice and thick and delicious.

I add some garlic powder, onion powder, and lots of salt and pepper. At the end, I like to finish it off with a little bit of heavy cream and Worcestershire, and then of course taste it. You might need to add more salt and pepper.

We just pile this hamburger gravy over mashed potatoes, and we had green beans on the side. It’s just a really easy, delicious meal. Let me know if you try it. We like making this when we need something quick and easy.

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Hamburger Gravy with Mashed Potatoes and Green Beans

Prep Time 15 minutes

Cook Time 25 minutes

Total Time 40 minutes

Servings 4

Ingredients

Mashed Potatoes

• 2 lbs russet or Yukon gold potatoes peeled and chopped
• 4 tablespoons butter
• ½ cup milk or more as needed
• Salt to taste

Hamburger Gravy

• 1 lb ground beef
• ½ medium onion finely chopped
• 2 tablespoons flour gluten-free or all-purpose
• 2 cups beef broth
• ½ teaspoon garlic powder
• ½ teaspoon onion powder
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 2 tablespoons heavy cream
• 1 –2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce

Green Beans

• 12 oz frozen green beans
• ¼ red onion sliced

Instructions

1. Boil potatoes in salted water until fork-tender, about 15–20 minutes. Drain, then mash with butter, milk, and salt. Cover and keep warm.
2. While potatoes cook, brown ground beef and chopped onion in a skillet over medium heat until fully cooked. Drain excess grease if needed.
3. Sprinkle flour over beef mixture and cook 1–2 minutes, stirring.
4. Gradually stir in beef broth. Bring to a simmer and cook until thickened, about 5 minutes.
5. Stir in garlic powder, onion powder, salt, pepper, heavy cream, and Worcestershire sauce. Taste and adjust seasoning.
6. Heat green beans with sliced red onion until warmed through.
7. Spoon hamburger gravy over mashed potatoes and serve with green beans on the side.

Well friends, I hope you enjoyed these easy winter meals! Let me know in the comments below if you enjoyed this post, as I’m always creating new things in the kitchen and could probably share several more recipes with you all haha If you’re new here, be sure to sign up for my completely free mini homemaking course below for more cooking ideas and inspiration! Bye friends!

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