Now that the weather is cooling off, I thought it might be a good time to start a thread on our favorite comfort foods - ones that we could use if we have to SIP. One of my favorite comfort foods is Honeyville Grain’s Mexican Hot Cocoa. http://tinyurl.com/ej6xw My 5-yo likes the Mint Hot Cocoa. I’ve stocked up on several flavors for a “special” treat, but they’re so good I can’t help myself…. Also helps the chocolate cravings.
Comfort foods- snow ice cream- made with snow, vanilla, powder eggs and Eagle Brand sweet and cond. milk. OK so it is cold, but I like it.
Oh yes, I like smoothies made with the dried bananas- but I soak them first.
For hot stuff, I like to drink hot Jell-O. Ok it sounds funny but it is good. And apples baked in aluminum foil in coals with brown sugar, cinnamon, pinch of nutmeg and butter if I have it.
One of my favorite comfort foods, especially on a cold Sunday afternoon, is a good hot stew. I found growing up that home-made stew is always the best, but can take a lot of prep work. There’s a particular brand of canned stew that we always took camping with us, and all we had to do was cut open the top of the can and heat it up over the fire. It’s one of those foods that’s both filling and nutritious, not to mention that it tastes great!
And DennisC, just to wssh it all down, we, too, drank hot Jell-O! Good food…
wssh?!? wash!!
All that sounds great!! Besides ANYthing with chocolate, I think my favorite comfort food combination is tomato soup & grilled cheese sandwich!
comfort to me is a warm house and the smell of bread baking in the oven. when cold weather hits I get the urge to bake and bake. instead of baking i need to hybernate so I won’t eat. LOLOL….I love a big pan of homemade hot cocoa and a big jar of marshmello cream to put on it…..and watch the snow come down……..what a life.mmmmmmmmmmm
One of my favorites for a cold day is Irish cocoa- real milk with all the fat, add a dollop of heavy cream, a double shot of Jameson’s and a half shot of Creme De Menthe with a generous helping of melted chocolate all stirred up.
As far as food, I have a great Lasagne recipe my mother used to make. That takes a long time but is OH so good. Just thinking about the aroma of her Lasagne recipe is enough to make my mouth water. Fresh baked bread using fresh ground flour is awesome too…..
a toasted piece of homemade whole wheat cinnamon walnut bread slathered in almond butter, heavily sprinkled with maple sugar and lightly dusted with cinnamon. food of the gods. goes great with hot chai.
Hot Chocolate. It helps the chocolate cravings, and it also takes the edge off of my hunger.
Like Bill, I love a big bowl of home made stew. We sometimes make a huge pot and then freeze some in individual containers to be nuked later. My mom was so well known for hers my friends would race me home if they knew she had made a pot of stew. According to my mom I improved upon her version. No Stew? Then vegetable beef soup sometimes helps.
Potato soup. I wish I had some of that which we used to get at Costco as a dry mix. A great prep item and awesome on a cold day to take the chill off.
Cream of Wheat. I usually only eat it when I have not been feeling well or I’m overtired and have had too much of the damp and the cold (and the world). It’s just easier on the stomach than oatmeal.
Irish Creme coffee. It relaxes me. Part of it is the mint but also it is just a mild flavor one can just sip and enjoy. It’s definately not that over-strong, brain jolting stuff served in most coffee houses.
wow, you guys are much better prepared than I am if you can cook Lasagna and mircrowave stew while you are SIP. I don’t think I will be freeze things, bake bread, and run my microwave- I just don’t have that much electrical backup.
cream puffs.
I kid you not.
After a long day (or a few hours of reading Monotoreme and Tom DVM on the Flu WIki) you can find me in front of the tube, eating a plate of cream puffs.
I think having food will be comfort enough.
Oremus – at 21:37 having food- and water.
Homemade Chex’s mix, homemade chili with garlic toast. Coffee with a dollop of Bailey’s.
Like Poppy, a big bowl of potato soup (homemade, can be made w/ prep items). Macaroni & cheese, even the stuff in the box (and made with just water) will do in a pinch. Chocolate covered raisins, I love em. Dried apples, can also eat them like they’re going out of style. Anything strawberry-rhubarb (pie, cobbler, any of them are heaven to me). I have the makings (or the finished product, in the case of chocolate-covered raisins and dried apples) for all of it in my preps. Hope I can keep from gaining weight if I have to SIP.
Mac and cheese, made with a good sharp cheddar. But the Blue box will have to do when push comes to shove. Scalloped tomatoes.Got the makins put back. And, of course, cocoa. I like mine with a dollop of peppermint schnapps.
Lisa in Southern Maine
That whole wheat walnut, cinnamon etc. bread sounds wonderful. Do you have a recipe you can share? My last big prep is going to be a bread machine when I finish paying off the last charges from months of prepping. Impressed with your comments on the cytokine thread. While I can understand some of it, must have been asleep in Biology. Of course that was about 40 years back!
Love Ovaltine, not as sweet as Hot Chocolate; I’ve got several jars and then I was in heaven when I found the #10 cans of it. I’ve always made it with hot water and powdered skim milk so no problem for me in a pandemic.
Licorice Tea is also a favorite or Lemon Ginger tea or Apple Cinnamon tea; I stocked up last week, enough for a year. Also have medicinal teas for sleep aid, flus, and colds.
You guys have made me hungry. There are so many things you’ve mentioned but I don’t have on my “eat healthy” plan. If we’re SIP I can see this plan will take a major hit; that is a concern to me.
Ooops, almost forgot the dark chocolate. Now if I could just forget where I put it, maybe it will be there for the SIP!
night all
Kim – at 21:46 --- Chocolate covered raisins? My neighbor just gave me a 5 pound tin of fresh ones. Her brother runs the National Raisin Co. in Raisin CA. MMmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm….sooooo good. They will NOT last into a pandemic as preps!!
tjclaw1 – at 16:10 what does Mexican hot cocoa taste like? How is it different? very intriguing for a Floridian
Nautical Man, I made the mistake of telling DH that dark chocolate is good for your heart, now he uses that as an excuse to grab my dark chocolate bars whenever he sees them in the house. I need to bury them further down in the preps, maybe behind the rice or powdered milk. Thank goodness my other favorites are things he would never voluntarily touch, much less eat :-)
BTW, stuffing my favorite preps down in “the hole”, as I call it, is the only way I can keep some of this stuff away from myself (and him!). “The hole” is actually a large cement-floor (now covered with indoor-outdoor carpet) crawlspace, temperature controlled, accessible by crawling through what used to be a basement window in the basement. Once in there you have to crawl on your hands and knees to move around, but it’s filled with shelves of preps. It’s a PITA to access (more so with each passing year!), so I’m not in there more than once a week at most, and DH even less. It’s a good place to hide things from ourselves that would get eaten in a flash if they were just sitting in the kitchen cabinets.
DennisC – at 16:34 Comfort foods- snow ice cream- made with snow, vanilla, powder eggs and Eagle Brand sweet and cond. milk. OK so it is cold, but I like it.
Dennis, this sounds yummy and fun and easy to make. I bought a thing from LL Bean to make ice cream as a treat during pandemic for my kiddos, but could you share this recipe? Proportions and directions? Thanks!
And Oremus is right. Eating will be comfort enough. But chocolate can’t hurt.
Chocolate, dark, milk, white, plain or with nuts, almonds, raisins, honey, orange, raspberries, moccha, pear liquor, cherry and kirsch, brandy, truffles… Hmmm. What else? Home-made jam and Nutella, hot dark plain cocoa… Have had to bury most of them beneath almost unaccessible preps, otherwise I eat my comfort while reading FW!
I just pour and stir to taste. The “trick” is that it needs to be the fluffy kind of snow and not the crunchy kind. You can add syrup, sugar, vanilla, chocolate, and so on as you like. I just like the taste of the Eagle Brand in it. I don’t even want to think about the calories, but for SIP you want lots of calories, so….
Here is a recipe I ripped of the net: Fresh, clean, soft, fluffy snow Milk, cream, or condensed milk. Pure vanilla extract Pure maple syrup (if you like)
Directions:
1. Go outside with a large soup-bowl. Scoop it full, if not slightly overfull, with nice virginal snow. Take a deep breath. Look around. Shiver. Appreciate the cold white wet big world.
2. Run back inside. Add the milk, a tiny bit of vanilla, and a healthy but not overly generous drizzle of maple syrup.
3. Stir well, quickly, with a spoon. The snow should almost immediately be incorporated into the liquid, making an ice-creamy / sorbet-ish confection. If it doesn’t, or if you taste it and it’s not absolutely perfect, add any one of the four ingredients until it’s just right. Sit down, eat it up, possibly do it all again, and celebrate life!
And for a group_
1 can sweet and condensed milk (Eagle brand) 1 can evaporated milk (what you have) 1.5 teaspoons of vanilla 1 tablespoon of sugar. (the powdered mixes in easier) Snow (clean fresh) Mix milks and vanilla. Gradually add and mix in the snow until ice cream is of desired consistency. Serves 5. You can also add about two teaspoons of powdered eggs.
The kids love it.
Cactus at 21:51 - I thought it was a typo when you typed scalloped tomatoes, I thought you meant potatoes, so I went on a recipe search and YUMMMMM!!!! I’m going to try scalloped tomatoes tonight! Thanks!
LMWBR - I noticed in an ad from our local liquor commission that Baileys have come out with a new product - mint flavoured Baileys!! I bet that wd be FAB!!! Would cut down on the number of bottles you need taking up room in your preps!! They also have a new caramel flavour I cant wait to try!! (disclaimer - I do not work for Bailey’s or the liquor commission - sadly!!)
My favorite jazz CD of the moment and a session of fine wine, spanish peanuts, and a little port contributing to a brief but substantial alcoholic buzz intermixing with soothing, salted monosaturated fats. It is over in an hour, but it reboots reality.
I’m surprised that no one has mentioned chili. <grin> Chili with meat, kidney beans, and elbow macaroni was considered a treat when I was a kid.
The other … OK, don’t laugh … of my childhood comfort meals is stewed potatoes, white beans and ham hocks, and cornbread. Can you tell I’m southern yet?! LOL!
You guys have made me so hungry I am going to go home and fix one of my favorite comfort foods for lunch: creamy peanut butter on bread layered with mini chocolate chips and thinly sliced bananas - toasted in a pan until golden brown and gooey. Anyone else hungry yet??!
Mint Baileys.
Hmmmm. I see a trip to the local store soon.
On a cold winter morning, Malt-O-Meal with a little butter, sugar, and half&half. Chicken and Noodles. Biscuits and gravy. Another vote for the homemade stew and beans with fried potatoes and cornbread. Nutella for that creamy chocolate fix. I think I can do all these (with a few minor substitutions) while SIP.
Kathy in FL – at 13:25 Chili with hot buttered cornbread. I love my cornbread with a little honey too.
There always a can of chicken corn chowder in my pantry. It’s my all purpose comfort food suitable for any situation from a bad cold to a case of the blahs.
I also enjoy childhood favorites like grilled cheese sandwiches, canned chicken rice soup, and graham crackers dipped in milk. To drink nothing beats cold chocolate milk served in a glass with two straws.
Depends on the season, time of day, how I feel. A lot of what others write is good. Potatoe soup with leeks, hot or chilled. Lemon bars. Peanut butter, bananas and bacon on a nutty bread, fried till squishy. Peaches with some liquor on vanilla ice cream. Root beer floats. Spiced up Chili. Corn chowder with chicken or shrimp. Chinese food, Thai Food. Good Spanish rice. Rice spiced up anyway with crab cakes. Soups and Stews. Grilled cheese, or pastrami and corned beef. (Jewish style, softly melting into peices as it is cooked right and fat). Good chicken soup made with innards and feet and vegetables with home made noodles.I find any really well made dish to be comfort food. Mashed potatoes, idaho potatoes, sweet potatoes just by themselves are comforting.You get a sudden yen for something, but might end up eating something else just as satisfying.
Dusty – at 08:04 tjclaw1 – at 16:10 what does Mexican hot cocoa taste like? How is it different? very intriguing for a Floridian
It has a hint of cinnamon in it. The Honeyvillegrain brand is very smoothe and wonderful chocolate flavor - I think they use Mexican cinnamon? Gotta order a case for my preps! Also got to get some Bailey’s Irish Cream and some other liquors - Oh, now I got a craving - off to fix a cup of mint hot chocolate…
The weather has cooled off ?!? Someone needs to tell Florida.
I’ve been putting easy bread mixes (chocolate chip, banana, blueberry, and cinnamon steusel) that only need water, oil, egg and heat in my preps. Along with random brownie mixes when they are B1G1F.
It will be a comfort to have food and water but the little details are why we are prepping early instead of waiting till the last minute.
tjclaw1 – at 18:08 Thanks! I may just order some — sounds good.
I agree with someone who said any food will be comfort food. In general I eat a lot of beans and grains anyway, so if this goes down, my prep food meals won’t be that different from my regular meals.
I am stocking up on special things, especially foreign things, which definitely won’t be available for a while: real Turkish coffee, Halloumi cheese from Cyprus, good Romano cheese from Italy, good ouzo from Greece, instant Indian foods. When things get bad I’ll grill up a slice of Halloumi, pour myself a little ouzo (or make up some Turkish coffee), and think about the rest of the world, and how wonderful it will be when this is all over and we can reconnect with everyone out there.
Simple childhood memories revived. Wonderful lemonaide with lots of lemon and sugar. Homemaid beignets and powdered sugar, straight out of the hot oil. I like just about anything with lemon in it. Lemon pound cake, a really fine lemon merange pie with a flakey crust and rich swirls of egg white topping. Any really flakey pie, not too sweet, not too sour. Coconut cream custard pie. Anything made with apples,. Apple cake, apple pie, apples of every sort in the fall. Pumpkins in muffins, pies, soups. Small pork ribs with a variety of seasonings, Jamaican jerk. Every kind of soup multi layered with vegetables and spices. Its a miracle that I am not fat.
Closed to Increase Forum speed