I used to regularly bake croissants to serve with Friday-night dinner. I haven't done so in ages. They're simple enough to produce; using any kind of white-yeast-raised dough -- but the best is an egg-infused one, as for Challah -- rolling out the dough into a circle, spreading with Becel margarine, folding it over into itself, rolling out again into a circle and repeating at least three times before the final roll-out; slicing the circle into triangles, then rolling them into crescents to rise and bake until crisp-brown.

Since we were snowed in on Sunday with really frigid temperatures, the day-time high not wanting to budge above minus-16 C., I cooked a lentil soup for dinner and thought crescents would complement the soup quite well. So, I also made croissants to serve with the soup. This morning, at breakfast time, my husband had the left-over croissants toasted for breakfast.

Now, since we're still snowbound, but not enough to keep us from our usual ravine trek with our little dogs, I'm going to prepare another meal I haven't made in ages. When our children were young I often would make baked beans to serve with shredded cheddar cheese, in the winter. It was nourishing and good-tasting, and it occurred to me, searching about in my memory files of recipes that this was another nutritious meal that had been neglected over the years.

Yesterday, we had a roasted Cornish hen with Tex-Mex seasoning, served with an egg-noodle-raisin pudding and asparagus, with mangoes and cherries for dessert. Colourful, fragrant and nicely filling with all the protein, carbohydrates and fats any well-fed family might take for granted with essential nutrients, vitamins and minerals we require for healthy living.

And mighty good-tasting, too. No winter blahs around the dining table.