For me it's Mac and Cheese or Oreo's and a big glass of milk.

Ask and ye shall receive...

I was talking about a recipe thread.

When I need comfort, I need someone else to cook, not me!

Seriously, though, even after all these years I am unclear on the concept of "comfort food." What is the alternative to comfort food? Discomfort food?

Comfort food is familiar, the dishes that Mom and Grandma fed you when you were a child. The opposite would be things that are outside your box, pushing your envelope. It's all culturally determined. I imagine if aloo gobi and murgh makhani were what you were fed as a child, you would consider those your comfort foods, and grilled cheese and Campbell's tomato soup might seem exotic.

Yup, my comfort foods include rice porridge topped with caramel catfish with plenty of fresh ground black pepper and charcoal grilled pork chops with rice and lightly pickled veggies.

Roast chicken and baked potato with lots of butter
Hohos and snowballs
A bowl of sushi rice with natto (sorry mdt )
Hot chocolate (with Baileys)

Fritopie made with my mother rather boring chili which comes to life with salty Fritos and grated chedder.

Comfort food. Further
That being said: Thai (green/red/yellow) curry w/ basmati rice; fresh mango; grilled cheese; tomato sandwich (white bread, Miracle Whip, ripe juicy tomatoes, processed american cheese slice). And mussels. How could I forget mussels. Especially when they're available for $4/2 lb. bag.

I think I'm channeling a little French kid because my comfort foods are things that my mom never made me: onion soup, cheese omelet with pommes persilladier (sp?); chicke with 40 cloves of garlic served on creamy polenta....

I never bought into the concept of eating meatloaf by choice.

You never ate my mom's cooking!

The foods that make me feel good include fried catfish with sides of mac'n'cheese, turnip greens and cornbread; shrimp'n'grits; and roast beef poorboys with gravy.

The foods that make me happiest include lots and lots of raw oysters with mignonette sauce washed down with beer, and shrimp remoulade.

None of which my mom cooked (or my grandmas). My mom's idea of a "special" meal was a slab of top round sprinkled with a package of Lipton onion soup mix, wrapped in aluminum foil, and baked until done (very well done). I started working at a very young age just so I could eat out.

But what if it's kick-ass meatloaf? Or is that an oxymoron?

For me, Chicken a la King transports me back to childhood. Veloute, sherry, cream, cooked chicken, peas and red peppers, usually served on toast but poured into puff pastry for company.

Comfort food mother-style usually involves a can of condensed "cream of" soup. Chicken and dressing bake is my all time favorite!

Most of the time a big bowl of spaghetti carbonara with lots of pepper cures what ails me.

Rachel

tapioca pudding, made with lots of egg white, and redolent of vanilla.

i haven't tried this in some time. for one thing, i don't have a mixer and beating egg whites by hand can be strenuous. (although i didn't burst too many blood vessels on a goat cheese souffle last week with beets and baby bok choy; i probably won't go looking for comfort this weekend, but the next time i do, i have been thinking of a chocolate souffle.)

my mother used to serve tapioca with canned pineapple, which made the whole thing double delicious. i'm not sure what i would think of it today, but probably would still like it at least almost as much.

Tapioca. I used to love it until my sister described it as "fish eye pudding."

Oster stew. Oysters, cream, milk, buter and black pepper.

Those are great choices for feel-good foods.

Comfort food doesn't have to be something mom made. Especially not if mom is a lousy cook.

One of my great aunts from North Carolina was an amazing cook, and did everything from memory. Her Brunswick stew was made with chicken, rabbit, lima beans -- thankfully one of my cousins followed her around one day writing down everything she did, so that recipe has been preserved.

This post brought to mind her version of French toast. She separated the eggs and used the yolks in the dipping mixture for the bread. The egg whites were whipped into meringue, sweetened with confectioner's sugar and served atop the fried bread which had been doused with hot, sweetened, fresh-squeezed lemon juice.

I haven't had lemon meringue French toast anywhere else, and I sure do miss it.

Carol, would you be willing to post the Brunswick stew recipe? And lemon merigue French toast sounds delicious.

I'll be making my version of an old standby this week: tuna casserole. Bechamel, creme fraiche, pasta, salmon, peas and dill.

Swiss steak and mashed potatoes. Also brownies.

This stuff?

Warm apple pie with vanilla bean ice cream.

Green beans with almonds. I didn't eat many green veggies as a kid but this was mom's foolproof way to make me happy.

Chicken soup with matzoh balls. Preferably with matzoh balls that weren't rock hard. I'd say my mom had about a 65% non-rock hard matzoh ball rate.

Zucchini bread. One of the few things my mom baked. I don't know if the rarity of a fresh baked good made it extra good, but it sure was good.

I have been making a really easy soup for comfort days

Quick Soup:

Bring a couple of cups of chicken broth to a simmer. Add frozen Asian dumplings. Heat for 4 minutes and serve.

Almost Quick Soup:

Heat several cups of chicken broth. Add a couple of pieces of chicken and some gound pepper and heat till the chicken is done. Take chicken out and shred meat (I put the bones back in to the pot to simmer a while longer) and a couple of handfuls of chopped carrots and celery. Heat till almost tender and add shredded chicken and take out bones. Add asian dumplings, green onions, and parsley, heat for 4 minutes. Serve

Yup. On a nasty, cold, rainy day, with mashed potatoes, crusty bread, and a Martini.

I love Swiss steak, but that recipe looks awfully bland. This Alton Brown recipe looks much tastier, although I'd lose the celery and add carrots. Gee, I haven't made Swiss steak for probably ten years. I think I might have a project.

Why is it called Swiss Steak? I have several Swiss cookbooks, and none of them have a recipe for cheap beef with tomato sauce.

Here is one reasonable explanation: Swiss Steak

So I made a very comforting Swiss steak over the weekend. I proceeded more or less along the lines of Alton Brown's recipe, linked upthread. However, I seasoned the flour with salt, pepper, and dry mustard (which most recipes seem to call for, but Alton's doesn't). I decided to keep the celery after all, but I added one carrot, sliced in rounds. (Why does gosh-darned Whole Foods not sell loose carrots? I wanted ONE CARROT. Carrots are quite individual things, unlike, say, celery, which grows in bunches. I got some chopped celery from the WF salad bar, but all they had was shredded carrots, and all they had in the produce department was bags of carrots in various sizes and bunches of carrots, sold by the bunch. I ended up going to Safeway to buy ONE CARROT.) Instead of beef broth I cheated and used some "Better than Bouillon". I used Muir Glen "Ground Tomatoes", a characterization that has always struck me as peculiar. They seem to be more "roughly hacked" than "ground" ... anyway, they're quite good and worked perfectly in this dish. I used a deep covered skillet, rather than a Dutch oven, and it spent about 2 hours in a 325F oven. Plated with mashed potatoes and a dollop of sour cream. Oh comfort me.

OK, I am going to have to try that.

Tonight's comfort food: spaghetti and meatballs, green salad, garlic bread.

Black-eyed peas. With lots of browned country ham dice and shallots. So easy I can cook it when I'm sick (it goes in the oven, I go to sleep).

1. Plugra butter and the best baguette within reach.
2. Bananas Foster. 3. Full fat French vanilla yogurt and gourmet granola. 4. Key Lime pie. 5. Tater Tots n' ketchup.

Either welsh rabbit/rarebit, with some beer mixed into the melted cheese, mom's spaetzle, or breakfast pasta.

There should be a better name for it, but the last one is a sauce-grabbing shaped pasta cooked to almost done, then tossed in a frying pan with scrambled egg mix (two eggs, as much grated cheese as possible, and dashes of half and half, pepper, and vietnamese hot sauce) and stirred until the mix cooks into the crenelations on the pasta.

It's my comfort food, plus a fond reminder of those times when all I had in the apartment were eggs, pasta, and condiments.

As opposed to eggs, pasta, and condoms.

What do these things have in common?

A> they are available in different shapes and sizes
B> they should be inspected for breakage before use
C> they should be lightly tossed
D> all of the above

2006 Rockwell Aptitude Test, verbal battery*

*assault charges dropped

Then there is the analogy section on the RAT verbal:

EGGS:CONDOMS

a: PASTA:ATKINS DIET
b. GEODUCK:NATTO
c. BARTLES:JAMES
d. CONGRESS:THIEVERY

almost anything w/ melted cheese, like an open faced bagel w/ tomato, melted cheddar & guacamole-a real mess to eat, everything slides all over the place...

2nd the blk-eyed peas, w/ rice,soy sauce &/or hot sauce & cornbread

poundcake, in the morning for breakfast, w/ some fruit...

1. Lightly-toasted sourdough slathered with butter and sprinkled with sea salt
2. Kettle Corn
3. Polenta
4. Chestnut Buttercream, licked from a spoon
5. Tater Tots n' ketchup.

I need them now! Help!

Head for Tonic.

Nah, that's why we have home deep fryers and Ore-Ida.