Comfort food

voluptuary_manque

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So what do you serve when the Christmas feasting has passed and it's colder than a well digger's belt buckle outside. We're having lentils and sausage. Lots of lentils and sausage with 3/8 of the liquid being beer.
 
Chicken and dumplings. :)

(and it actually snowed here for a bit yesterday)
 
Chicken and dumplings. :)

(and it actually snowed here for a bit yesterday)

I've never had chicken and dumplings that had any flavor whatever. Someday I must wend my way down to Georgia and find out how they're supposed to taste! :)
 
For chicken and dumplings, Cloudy's recipe is a major winner!

My favorite comfort food this time of year is roast beef with Yorkshire pudding, mashed potatoes, and plenty of gravy. Ah, that's a sight to warm your heart. Throw in bread pudding for dessert and I am in my own personal heaven.
 
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Today we had hot open-faced sandwiches made from a Buffalo Roast, rosemary mashed potatoes and Buffalo/Apple gravy.

VERY yummy and tummy warming.
 
Today we had hot open-faced sandwiches made from a Buffalo Roast, rosemary mashed potatoes and Buffalo/Apple gravy.

VERY yummy and tummy warming.

I have an addition to my New Year's resolutions: wangle an invitation to that house.

Cloudy, but naturally. Effort very well repaid!
 
Right now, I have the meanest, strongest, creamiest and spiciest hard cheese on the planet chained down in my fridge. Double slices over hot rye toast soaked with a spead of olive tinged butter. Gaddayum.
 
If we'd had turkey for Christmas, I'd have made gumbo out of the rest of it, but that's what I did for Thanksgiving. We've decided in recent years that we just couldn't face two turkeys back-to-back. Tonight we had some more of the standing rib roast I cooked for Christmas. Incredibly, there's still some left. I'll have to think of something to do with it.

So I guess if I make comfort food it'll have to be based on something else.
 
So many comfort foods for so many situations.

Bisquits and Gravy
Goulash Soup
Grilled Ranch Bacon
Super Roast Beef Sandwich
Chili

My all time favorite for those downright frozen days when you are lower than a snakes belly and the whole damned world is out to get you while your spouse has left you for the neighborhood con would have to be what we call anything goes stew.

Cat
 
I'm boiling down a goose carcass for that express purpose right now. I'll take out the bones and vegetables and pitch them this evening and let the stock simmer all night. Unless I put it into the fridge so I can skim the fat off in the morning and then let it cook down--and down--and down . . .
 
I wisely make a shellfish stew (with wine, lobster, scallops, etc) for Xmas Eve. Add a side of garlic bread and it's the ultimate comfort food--a warm soup, a meal, an elegant feast. I make enough to last three or four days (in this case, the whole weekend) ;)

I also discovered a recipe for these very addictive cinnamon-nut cookies (from Epicurious)--dead simple. They seem like nothing the first time you taste them, but once you start nibbling on them you can't stop. Very addictive. Buttery like shortbread, crispy, go really well with hot tea, coffee, cocoa and the like. Talk about comfort!

Cinnamon-Almond cookies

3 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon (I recommend you toss in a tablespoon instead--the cinnamon can barely be tasted with 1 teaspoon)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter,room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup (packed) golden brown sugar
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 3/4 cups sliced or blanched slivered almonds (I used pecans. Now I'm wondering about using hazelnuts for the next time...yum!)

Sift first 4 ingredients into medium bowl. Beat butter in large bowl until fluffy. Beat in both sugars. Add egg and egg yolk; beat to blend. Beat in vanilla and salt. Add flour mixture and beat until dough comes together in moist clumps. Add almonds and knead gently in bowl with hands until blended.

Divide dough into 4 equal portions. Roll each into 10-inch-long log, about 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Wrap dough in 2 layers of plastic and place in freezer until frozen, at least 4 hours. (Can be prepared 1 month ahead. Keep frozen.)

(Like other such freezer cookies, the cool thing is that you can just take out a log any time during the month and make up as many as you need. Instant cookies for when guests drop in for coffee! And you might want to bake them for a few minutes longer, till brown around the edges.)

Preheat oven to 350°F. Working with 1 log at a time, remove plastic and cut crosswise into 1/4-inch-thick rounds. Place rounds on ungreased baking sheet, spacing 1 inch apart. Bake until light golden brown, about 12 minutes. Transfer cookies to rack and cool completely. (Can be prepared 4 days ahead. Store airtight at room temperature.)
 
Sounds good, I might try it.

Here's a recipe for the Best Sugar Cookies in the World:

3/4 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup white sugar
1 whole pound (yes, the whole box, all four sticks) of BUTTER (yes, REAL butter, not margarine, the texture will come out wrong)
4 1/2 cups of flour

Believe it or not, that's all the ingredients. No salt, no eggs, no vanilla flavoring. The butter and the brown sugar combine to make the flavor.

Cream butter and two sugars together; work in flour. Roll into balls, roll balls in sugar, flatten with something with a completely flat bottom, bake at 325 for 12 minutes. During the Christmas season, for the rolling-in-sugar stage, I use red and green sugar. If I bring them to work, I never get to take any back home.
 
I made a big pot of chili for lunch, then we went out for Chinese for dinner. Yesterday, I made fried fish, Italian roast beef, green bean casserole, homemade mac and cheese, and carrot cake...it was all gone today, so needless to say, I kind of wanted a break from cooking tonight. ;)
 
Jesus Christ...can I move in with all of you? I'll make rotations from house to house. It sounds like none of you are stingy with food. My mother on the other hand....:rolleyes:
 
My comfort food hasn't changed for years:

Sausages, mashed potato and baked beans served with HP sauce.

The details are important. The sausages must be made by our favourite butcher, the mashed potato must be made from local potatoes and seasoned with milk and ground black pepper, and the beans must be Heinz.

That meal always puts me in a good mood.

Og
 
Don't know what it's called, but it's a kale and bean soup with sausage, and I think this is from Portugal.

They say that almost all cultures that grow beans and leafy green vegetables have a version of this soup. You'd think that beans and greens would have nothing to do with each other gastronomically, but the combination is amazingly delicious, mouth-rich, and satisfying. The amounts of the ingredients don't really matter but you want it thick and semi chunky, kind of like a stew. A stoup, actually, I guess. It's ready in like 30 minutes.

Big bunch of kale or spinach, chopped
Two cans of beans, drained, (I like Great Northern, but you can use probably any kind. Garbanzos are very good, kidneys are fine)
Pound of spicy Italian sausage.
Stick of Chorizo (that's the closest I could get to the Portugese sausage we were supposed to use. You can also use Polish sausage or anything garlicky, or even leave the meat out altogether)
Dehydrated chicken or beef or onion bouillon

Chop up the sausage and brown it in a little oil. Add as much water as you want soup (about 4-6 cups over here) and throw in the kale. Don't worry if the kale barely fits in the pot, it'll cook down to nothing in a few minutes.

When the kale's tender, add boullion according to package directions to make a stock. Throw in the beans to warm through.

That's it. Serve with good crusty bread and red wine. No salt or pepper needed.

The soup is very thick, almost a stew; a stoup, actually, I guess. When you use chorizo, the broth is brick red, which looks lovely against the green kale, especially at Christmas. The slight bitterness and crunch of the greens somehow melds with the bland creaminess of the beans and provides this wonderful taste and tactile experience in your mouth, a perfect background for the meaty spiciness of the sausage. It's very primitive and also wonderfully subtle; very earthy. Warms you from the stomach out.

The stoup is also very forgiving. You can do anything you like to it: add onions and carrots, vegetables, hot sauce, tomatoes, potatoes. It also works well as a fish soup. I've seen recipes where they take some out and put it in a blender and then return that to the pot for extra thickness, or you can add milk or cream to make it rich.
 
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