During the winter, we tend to hunker down and hibernate here in New England, where record cold temperatures and seemingly endless snow falls make staying inside a lot more attractive than shoveling our way out.

Our bodies also crave the fittingly titled "comfort foods"-heartier, heavier soups and stews and casseroles-over salads and simply prepared grilled meat and seafood.

But winter menus don't have to include only high-fat items that pack on the pounds. Healthy, vitamin-rich choices abound in many cold-weather recipes.

Shaheed Toppin of Waterford, who became the chef at Ledyard's Stonecroft Country Inn in 2009, has designed his winter menu around the more filling fare customers gravitate toward when it's cold outside.

"We serve more beef, more cream-based soups and bisques, dishes with heavier sauces," Toppin says. "Even the red wines we serve at our Tuscan wine dinners are bolder."

Guests also tend to order four courses in the winter, versus three in the warmer seasons, Toppin notes.

"No one wants to be rolled out of a restaurant in the summer," Toppin says, "but in the winter people seem to eat more because they're indoors more and think it's OK to put on a few more pounds, since they're not at the beach in a bathing suit."

Toppin says one of the most popular seasonal dishes at Stonecroft is the seafood pot pie made with scallops, lobster, shrimp and baby spinach, simmered in lobster Newburg sauce in a puff pastry shell.

Not only rich and flavorful, the dish fulfills both halves of the popular "eat seasonally and locally" edict, which isn't easy in the winter. But unlike fruit and vegetables, fresh, local seafood-like Stonington scallops-is harvested all year.

Toppin's father, chef at the Griswold Inn in Essex for 30 years, created the recipe. Toppin was raised alongside his dad in the food industry before he started his own culinary career after graduating from Johnson & Wales University in Providence.

Toppin's use of bold seasonings brings out the flavors in the winter menu.

"I like to use spicy and sweet combinations-spice to open up people's palates and sweet to even it off," he says. "I use more savory flavors, like sage and rosemary, and more maple syrup and brown sugar in the squash dishes."

Pork tenderloin with apple and butternut squash stuffing, ginger-laced carrots and herbed basmati rice brings together bolder flavors with the multiple health benefits of apples, squash, carrots and ginger. Recent research studies have found that winter squashes provide a major source of antioxidants, such as alpha-carotene and beta-carotene that help prevent disease and bolster the immune system, which comes in handy during flu season.

For a lighter touch, Toppin uses fresh berries and melon year-round in the restaurant, to balance out some of the richer offerings. As an entrée, Toppin makes a blueberry chicken with tender chicken breasts, pan seared and flamed with blackberry brandy, and finished with a blueberry reduction.

No matter what the season, in preparing a meal, Toppin points out that it's quality of ingredients and good execution that matters most.

To learn more about local seasonal produce in Connecticut, visit www.ct.gov/doa and click on "2010 Holiday and Winter Farmers' Markets" in the Welcome box.

Apple Bread Pudding

Versatile apples, popular plunder from the fall harvest, store nicely and play a big role in cold-weather cooking. Try this apple bread pudding as a hearty dessert this winter.

6 whole eggs

1 cup heavy cream

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup coffee-flavored liquor, such as Kahlua

1 loaf stale baguette or ciabatta bread, diced

6 apples, peeled and sliced

2 tablespoons cinnamon

2 tablespoons sugar

1/2 cup melted butter

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine eggs, heavy cream, brown sugar, half of the cinnamon, coffee-flavored liquor and nutmeg.

Add half of the apples and all of the bread. Work mixture together until bread has absorbed all the cream mixture.

Toss remaining apples with cinnamon and sugar.

Pour melted butter on cookie sheet, and add the apples to the cookie sheet, spreading them evenly.

Add bread pudding mixture on top of the apples, spreading evenly.

Bake in the oven for 30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out cleanly from the center of the pudding.

Let cool for 15 minutes and flip the bread pudding out of the pan; slice into 6 or 8 pieces served apple-side up with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.

Recipe courtesy of chef

Shaheed Toppin.