This month, welcome Sara Bir. Sara Bir is the author of two cookbooks, Tasting Ohio and the IACP award-winning The Fruit Forager’s Companion. She also moderates and replies to your comments here on Simply Recipes. Follow her @sausagetarian.

As much as I love the holidays, there’s something liberating about how free-form January is. The only seasonal obligations I can think of are simply making it through dreary weather.

On nights when it’s just us, my daughter and I have taken to playing Connect 4 at the dinner table. Violating the sanctity of a family meal this way is something I never would have gone for a year ago, but nowadays it’s how we spice things up after spending yet another day in the house together.

With that in mind, these recipes bring spice, heat, or warmth in one form or another. Whether it’s playing games while distracted by food or turning the thermostat up a few degrees higher than normal, this January, I’m loosening up my wintery demeanor and leaning into the coziness we create.