Beat the winter blues with these hearty and delicious recipes

Here's a delicious idea for lunch or dinner. You'll need unsweetened applesauce (half a cup), almond milk (1/3 cup), oatmeal (1.5 cups), eggs (2), maple syrup (1 tablespoon), vanilla extract (1 teaspoon), baking powder (2 teaspoons), ground cinnamon (1 teaspoon), nutmeg, and salt (a pinch each). Blend all the ingredients into a smooth mixture. Then add grated carrots (1 cup), chopped walnuts (1/4 cup), and raisins (3 tablespoons). Mix well.

Pour portions of the mixture onto a pan with heated ghee. When the pancakes become golden and bubbles appear on their surface, flip to the other side. Serve them American-style with maple syrup and melted butter. They also taste great with fruit or whipped cream.

In winter, it's worth eating salads with warming additions like ginger. How do you prepare an aromatic dressing from it? Blend freshly grated ginger (1 teaspoon) with olive oil (1/4 cup), apple cider vinegar (1 tablespoon), Dijon mustard (1 tablespoon), maple syrup or honey (1 tablespoon), and season with salt and pepper.

Toast pecans (1 cup) on a dry pan until golden, then chop. Arrange arugula leaves on a large plate, sprinkle with nuts and crumbled feta cheese, cover with thinly sliced apple and pear, add pomegranate seeds, and drizzle with ginger dressing just before serving.

In stores and markets, we can increasingly find butternut squash with a characteristic shape (like a large peanut), thin skin, and sweet-nutty flavored flesh. We will prepare a delicious dish from it, perfect for a winter day.

Cut two medium squashes lengthwise in half, scoop out seeds and fibers, then place on a baking sheet. Drizzle with olive oil, season with salt and pepper, and bake in the oven at 400°F for 40 minutes.

Meanwhile, prepare the stuffing. Heat olive oil in a pan, add fresh chopped spinach (about 10 oz), smoked paprika, and chili powder (each ¼ teaspoon). Cook on medium heat for about 5 minutes. Then add crumbled feta (about 7 oz), mix with spinach, and season with salt and pepper.

Let the baked squash cool slightly. Scoop out the flesh with a spoon and add it to the spinach and feta mixture. Mix well. Fill the squash with the stuffing, and sprinkle with toasted pine nuts and fresh herbs like thyme and rosemary.

A tasty dessert-snack, perfect for a gloomy winter day.

Blend two peeled sweet potatoes, condensed milk (1.5 cups), brown sugar (half a cup), a lightly beaten whole egg and four egg whites, oil (2 tablespoons), freshly squeezed orange juice (2 tablespoons), ginger (grated or ground), ground cloves, and allspice (each ¼ teaspoon), and a pinch of salt. Pour the mixture into a baking dish, cover with aluminum foil, and bake for 1.5 hours at 350°F. After that, remove the foil, sprinkle with coconut flakes, and bake until they brown and the pudding sets.

We usually stuff dumplings with meat, cabbage, or cottage cheese with potatoes. However, dumplings are open to experimentation—you can stuff them with aromatic tangerines.

First, prepare the dough. Add a pinch of salt to about 10.5 oz of wheat flour, then slowly pour in melted butter (about 3/4 oz), stirring constantly. Next, add a beaten egg and knead everything into a smooth mass. Set the dough aside for half an hour, and in the meantime, prepare the tangerine filling—peel, remove the membranes and seeds from a few ripe fruits, cut into smaller pieces, and add to ground cottage cheese (about 10.5 oz), previously mixed with two yolks whipped with sugar (1 tablespoon) and vanilla extract (1 teaspoon).

Divide the dough into several pieces, rolling each into a disk about 0.08-0.12 inches thick. Use a glass to cut circles, on which you'll place a heaping teaspoon of filling. Finally, carefully seal the dumplings and drop them in batches into boiling salted water with a teaspoon of oil. When they float to the surface, cook for about two more minutes.