Comfort foods

[jdb1]

The ultimate comfort food for me will always be chocolate.

I thought that most British comfort foods would probably contain custard, which you read about in English novels as a seemingly essential part of a meal. We Americans don't do "savory" the way the British do. It's not an inherent part of a meal, but may be there only incidentally.

However, I find most desserts that do not contain chocolate to be unsatisfying. I'd just as soon have one Hershey's Kiss as a whole spongecake. Ugh, I don't like spongecake.

I've been trying to think of what I would consider my all-time favorite dessert, but I keep coming up with something different every time I think of one that might be my favorite. Rocky Road ice cream might be number 1, as long as it's not too sweet, but I am also extremely fond of Goldenberg's Peanut Chews, Charleston Chews (they aren't as good as they used to be) and French and/or Italian nougats. Guess I like the chewy stuff.

You can hardly find those lovely French nougats any more, the kind that are little rectangle of half white-half pink, with maybe a candied fruit or a slice of a gumdrop inside. What they have on sale now is merely solidified corn syrup, and not true nougat at all. Homemade Italian nougat can be bought by the pound at the annual San Gennaro Festival in Little Italy. You just indicate with your hands how big a hunk you want from the block, and they hack it off with a big knife that looks like a machete. Bellissimo!

I'll keep eating those nougats until I need dentures, which should be any day now. Then I guess I'll have to switch to that fine English custard.

[rudyfan]

Potato leek soup with a HUGE hunk of crusty sourdough bread (toasted and slathered with butter) or a bean soup, as Knitwit said, white bean and ham. A chicken pot pie on a really cold evening is wonderful. A baked pasta dish that I make with ricotta and spinach is also a big comfort food. A large pot of chai and samosas with chutney. A baked potato with sour cream and chives. Man, am I ever hungry!

[knitwit45]

Donna, I LUST after real San Francisco sourdough bread...my sister in law knows she can't come in the house if she hasn't brought at least 1 loaf...

[Birdy]

Nancy, Did you make the chocolate run? You sound reasonable, so I'm guessing yes. I can't believe you were totally out...or did you just forget where your backup stash was?l I cannot live a day without chocolate, I admit it. Everyone says, 'How come you're not fat if you eat so much chocolate?' but really I don't eat that much. I just have to have it every day. Sometimes several times a day. Plus, I think if you eat something that satisfies you, you eat less. For example, if I'm craving chocolate and I eat chocolate chip cookies, I could eat six and that's a lot more calories and fat than if I just have a couple of pieces of really good dark chocolate.
But if I'm actually craving cookies...that's another story. I don't bake them except for the kids or to take somewhere because I cannot stop. I love all cookies, even if they've gone stale; I just dunk them in coffee for breakfast. Chocolate chip are my favorite and that's another comfort food for me. I love all types of them (you know how everybody's are a little different) but I think mine are best!
Birdy

[Professional Tourist]

How about a grilled cheese sandwich and a cup of Campbell's Tomato soup for chasing away the cold?

Man, I love grilled cheese, and tuna melts. Had a grilled cheese at dinner tonight -- cheddar, tomato, and ham on rye bread, steaming hot as I unwrapped the foil!

There used to be an italian diner in my neighborhood that closed a few years ago that made the best tuna melts I've ever had. I'm not sure what their secret was, may have been the bakery from which they got their daily breads. It was just tuna salad with cheddar cheese and tomato, but they'd put it on either crusty tuscan white bread or these dense slices of whole wheat (your choice). I'd get a bowl of soup to go with it, their tuscan tomato-bread soup was tops. When I had been out of town, that was usually one of the first meals I had when I got back home. Man, I miss that place. . . .

[charliechaplinfan]

Breads can vary so much and make dishes such as pizza and melts the best dishes in the world. I love the smell of freshly baked bread, I could get seriously fat off freshly baked bread.

Birdy, I'm like you, I have chocolate in all the time, I rarely eat biscuits or cakes preferring fruit for desert, I nibble on chocolate quite a bit during the day. I don't find that it calls to me out of the refridgerator, my mother and mother in law can't leave goodies alone, if something nice is in they have to eat it all up. The only thing I'm like that about is good old fashioned trifle, I love trifle. Sponge cake soaked in a little sherry, rasperries and raspberry jelly, custard and cream on the top topped off with Cadbury's flake.

Custard can vary an awful lot in taste and texture, I love mine made with the freshest eggs and an extra yoke in there for good measure, plenty of vanilla essence and a mixture of cream and milk.

[knitwit45]

Alison, you sound like a cooking show!!!!! It's early here, and I am going to think about that trifle all day long....

No, B, I didn't get out for chocolate. Even the DOGS are beginning to regret my decision to stay in.
It is so bitterly cold out, and I just about froze my backside off shoveling snow off the driveway. Maybe today...

I'm a sucker for MilkyWay candy bars..Walmart sells packages of 2 for a dollar. Good chocolate is a real treat, I always thought Russell Stovers chocolates were the best (a hometown company). Then someone waved a box of See's chocolates under my nose, and I was a deserter of the first rank! While in Europe, friends and I found the chocolate shop across the street from the famous statue of the little boy, in Brussels, Belgium. Again...a deserter of all American made chocolate. Belgian and or Swiss chocolates are the ultimate.

Now where the sam hill are those car keys?????

[Ollie]

I would never call my 'plate o' beans' a chili. There are vegetarian chili's but I'll lean toward the purists - "Ain't no such thing - chili is meat - probably bad, tough, the worst meat of the lot. Worse than stew meat - because chili's cooked just as long AND spiced completely to cover up the meat."

Sort of like rowdy soccer crowds, there is a similiarly-spirited chili-cookoff crowd that somehow roams freely in North America. None of the airport or Homeland Security systems seem aware of these people. Probably because they don't fly, they drive. They're more like John Carradine types in HOUSE OF DRACULA - large caravans of vehicles with who-knows-what in the darkened sanctuaries, locked deep inside.

But their weapons are more like biological in destructive power - or at least to digestive systems. "Bring plenty of toilet paper..." is often printed in very teeny letters at the bottom of any WELCOME CHILI FANS banners.

I personally am not one of these 'types'. I attend some, and we have neighbors who are avowed disciples of these wanton tribes. All of these are "great friends" too. Unless I'd foolishly utter these words. "I'd love the recipe for this."

Then, I'd hear a flurry of cusswords and promises (not just threats), I'd see swords sharpened, stakes charred and all kinds of vile visions dangled in front of me, in those last few moments of life.

[movieman1957]

what time is dinner????? It all sounds wonderful.

I just had a panic attack.....I'm out of CHOCOLATE......gasp, where are the car keys???

Deep breaths. Easy now. I had this happen once. It's scary but you'll be ok.

[knitwit45]

what time is dinner????? It all sounds wonderful.

I just had a panic attack.....I'm out of CHOCOLATE......gasp, where are the car keys???

Deep breaths. Easy now. I had this happen once. It's scary but you'll be ok.

Thanks, Chris, I needed that.

[knitwit45]

Man, I love grilled cheese, and tuna melts. Had a grilled cheese at dinner tonight -- cheddar, tomato, and ham on rye bread, steaming hot as I unwrapped the foil!

PT, that sounds divine! I think I've gained 5 pounds just READING about all this great food. My next trip to the grocery store is going to include all the fixings for one of your grilled cheese sandwiches.

I wish I could leave chocolate alone, but I have to put those candy bars in the freezer, then wait for one to thaw out before eating it. It slows me down, but it doesn't stop me!

[rohanaka]

My FAVORITE way to eat chocolate is my grandma's chocolate meringue pie... OH My golly. It was one of the FIRST pies I ever learned how to make... (I made her teach me how when I was a teen because I loved them so much, ha) and now that she has been gone these many years, it is good to be able to still have my fave treat and think of memories of HER while I am baking, too...

It is THE best for a chocolate fix (for me, anyway) Extra creamy.... EVER so chocolatey... and the meringue is the crowning glory on top... (OH... and it is also GOOD for getting to lick the pan that you made the filling in while the pie is in the oven too... ha. Did I mention OH MY GOLLY???) ha.

I haven't made this in SOME time... but after reading all your chocolate cravings.... I am thinking I may have to add it to my agenda today... the pumpkin pie I made a couple of days ago is almost gone... and we CAN'T run out of pie, now.. can we????? (Nancy... I will put it on the window sill to cool... and maybe the breeze will be blowing hard enough from the east and you can catch a whiff.... ha)

PS... I once had a "Milky Way" addiction that lasted almost an entire year... and I LITERALLY had to have a Milky Way Candy bar EACH day... (But that was like 20+ years ago when I was young and single and did not have to SHARE... now between me, the QT, and the kidling... we can't keep candybars in stock that long... I'd have to run to the store daily if I tried to support a habit like that again..ha)

[charliechaplinfan]

However, I find most desserts that do not contain chocolate to be unsatisfying. I'd just as soon have one Hershey's Kiss as a whole spongecake. Ugh, I don't like spongecake

I'm with you Judith, is I'm going to indulge and have lots of fat and calories, it has to have chocolate in there.

Cadbury's is the most satisying chocolate around. I'm not sure you have it in America, it will probably be expensive if you have, it's not as bitter as Hershey, it's creamier. Not that I'd ever turn a Hershey bar down of course, I love all chocolate, I'm just partial to Cadbury's.

[jdb1]

However, I find most desserts that do not contain chocolate to be unsatisfying. I'd just as soon have one Hershey's Kiss as a whole spongecake. Ugh, I don't like spongecake

I'm with you Judith, is I'm going to indulge and have lots of fat and calories, it has to have chocolate in there.

Cadbury's is the most satisying chocolate around. I'm not sure you have it in America, it will probably be expensive if you have, it's not as bitter as Hershey, it's creamier. Not that I'd ever turn a Hershey bar down of course, I love all chocolate, I'm just partial to Cadbury's.

I don't know how other Americans feel, Alison, but I can't abide Cadbury's (not particularly expensive), or any other English chocolates, which I find sickeningly sweet. I suppose here we do prefer a chocolate with a little more "bite" to it. I wonder if Hershey bars in England taste the same (i.e. have the same recipe) as they do here.

And, wow, Knitty, ain't See's chocolate Da Bomb? A co-worker received a gift box from See's at Christmas, which he was nice enough to share with the rest of us, and we all agreed they were fabulous. I'm afraid I don't like Russell Stover chocs as much as I used to -- I think they tend to be ultra-gooey, and taste more artificially flavored than they did in the past. I remember enjoying them much more in the Olden Days. I used to prefer Whitman's to Stover's anyway, but Whitman's now also have the same fake taste and weird textures as Stover's. (Are they owned by the same entity?)

[Professional Tourist]

My favorite chocolate is Lindt Excellence 85% Cocoa:

Even their 70% cocoa chocolate I find too sugary, too sweet.