Comfort foods

[Birdy]

Alison,
Do you have Dove chocolate in England?
To me, it's a little saltier chocolate, which I like.
Once you have had Dove, Hershey's tastes like sawdust.
(Although I'll eat it in a pinch!)
B

[Birdy]

Alison,
I will give you my mother's recommendation for chili:
It needs more sugar.
She and my grandmother (93) think anything with tomatoes and vinegar needs sugar to activate it or something.
So, I have to admit, I like sweeter chili, having been raised on it.
But I make mine with turkey burger as I do not like red meat much.
There's a big boom of white chili around here; I keep tweaking mine but am just not that happy with it. I keep trying to turn it into the same flavors as my potato soup, I guess.
B

[mrsl]

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Hey ladies:

I always add between a teaspoon and a tablespoon of sugar to my spaghetti sauce and/or chili sauce because the sugar absorbs the acid in the tomatoes and vinegar, in addition to sweetening. Many people use baking soda to cut the acid, but naturally, it doesn't make the sauce any sweeter. Have you ever noticed less burping goes on after dinner when you use sugar than the time when you don't?
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[charliechaplinfan]

Beans on toast is always served on a plate and eaten with a knife and fork, the beans don't always stay on the bread which is part of the fun. I love to curry my beans with some curry powder and raisans, I have strange tastes.

I haven't heard of Dove chocolate but it sounds lovely. We have Cadbury's, Nestle, Galaxy and Rowntree. With dark chocolate there is Lindt, Suchard and a couple of others.

Fish sticks will be fish fingers, I ate so many when I was little I can't eat them now.

I'd love that recipe Birdy.

[jdb1]

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Hey ladies:

I always add between a teaspoon and a tablespoon of sugar to my spaghetti sauce and/or chili sauce because the sugar absorbs the acid in the tomatoes and vinegar, in addition to sweetening. Many people use baking soda to cut the acid, but naturally, it doesn't make the sauce any sweeter. Have you ever noticed less burping goes on after dinner when you use sugar than the time when you don't?
.

I and my various Italian relatives do sometimes use a pinch of sugar in the "gravy" if it's too acidic. But more often we put in a healthy dose of chopped onion, which has natural sugar and does indeed cut the bitterness. Wine in the sauce can also offset the acidity of the tomatoes. It all depends on how the particular sauce tastes, and whether it's made with fresh or canned tomatoes and/or tomato paste.

I never noticed about burping and sugar. Do you mean after eating tomato sauce? I'd imagine the acidity of the tomatoes makes for the burps, and minimizing that acidity would minimize the burping as well. I have never heard of putting baking soda in tomato sauce. Doesn't sound like anything you'd find in Italian cuisine. I suppose you wouldn't burp at all if you used baking soda in your gravy.

Sorry, Birdy, but I don't at all like Dove chocolate. I never thought of it as salty -- I'll have to try some again to see. Rather, I find it cloyingly sweet and I especially don't like the texture. I find it kind of fatty/greasy/oily, like Godiva, which I hate. I'm a Hershey girl 'ill I die. Isn't it interesting how our taste buds give us all such different messages?

[charliechaplinfan]

I often put a tiny bit of sugar in sauces and soups to adjust it for my daughter's tastebuds. I never knew it helped reduce burping.

[JackFavell]

I put a little sugar in both chili and spaghetti sauce - but I also put a dash of salt in all baked goods - the salt makes the sweet taste better.

[charliechaplinfan]

Yes I add a pinch of salt to baked goods too.

Today, the kids were off school again, a flood this time, so I baked with my over enthusiastic 4 year old. We made chocolate brownies but I'm not happy with the recipe. Anyone out there got a good one?

One thing making your own cakes does is make you realise how much fat and sugar goes in. It's scary sometimes.

[JackFavell]

I find it less scary knowing what is in my baked cookies and cakes, than seeing the ingredients on pre-packaged cookie doughs and cakes.... yikes! At least what we bake is real food! I have a real problem with anything that has a lot of preservatives or oodles of corn syrup....(the worst is breakfast cereal. Even the ones that are supposed to be "healthy" or "diet" are filled with corn syrup! How is a person supposed to lose weight when the first ingredient in corn syrup?) Sorry. Personal pet peeve rearing it's ugly head.... continue with comfort food....

I am not really a brownie kind of person. Good luck finding a recipe. Do you like cakey ones or fudgey ones?

[mrsl]

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Judith you brought back a funny memory for me but first off - we agree 100% on both the Dove chocolate and the Godiva.

When my daughter and I arrived at our mobile home in Las Vegas, we met our wonderful neighbors who were from Brooklyn. They ran two extension cords between the homes so we could have TV at night and coffee in the a.m. Also, they invited us over for dinner the next day (Sunday), since our furniture did not arrive until late Saturday night. Wanting to be a nice guest, I thought I would bring a bottle of wine, instead of just an open mouth to the table, so I asked what she would be serving; when she answered noodles and gravy, the only thing that I imagined was egg noodles with brown beef gravy, which is a side dish and certainly not a main course, and so we called back to Illinois to see if anyone knew what she could possibly have meant. I got a nice Merlot thank goodness, but we were shocked when we walked in and smelled Italian sauce cooking. I guess that not only names but ingredients differ in Italy depending on where the family is from. I have since met people who have an entirely different idea of what Brazziole is compared to me, and several other things.

Regarding comfort food, nothing is more comforting to me than PB&J on white bread with the crust cut off and a big glass of chocolate milk.
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[SSO Admins]

Courtney makes a mac and cheese with cheddar, goat cheese, caramelized shallots and bacon that's my fave comfort food.

I make a black bean soup with roasted poblano that we both really like.

She also does a wonderful pasta fazool.

[knitwit45]

Courtney makes a mac and cheese with cheddar, goat cheese, caramelized shallots and bacon that's my fave comfort food.

Jon, who do you want killed? That recipe sounds like heaven on earth!!!!!

[jdb1]

Courtney makes a mac and cheese with cheddar, goat cheese, caramelized shallots and bacon that's my fave comfort food.

Jon, who do you want killed? That recipe sounds like heaven on earth!!!!!

Then there's that generational thing. The recipe you describe, Jon, sounds really delicious (have to try it). But it also sounds rather upscale to me as a comfort food. I think of comfort foods as those that are simple and basic. I know there's nothing especially fancy about Courtney's mac and cheese, it's just that tastes have changed, and the comfort foods of my childhood would certainly never have contained either goat cheese or shallots, which would have been considered "rich people food." (Goat cheese, something of a specialty item when I was little, would have been out of our price range way back then. And nobody in my set even knew what a shallot was until Julia Child came along in the 60s.)

And speaking of basic, I've been remembering since we started this discussion that when I was very very little, my favorite meal was Ronzoni pastina with milk and butter (and a pinch of salt). That's really considered Italian baby food (or Italian old folks food). Haven't had it in years. Now that I'm an Italian Old Folk, I think I'll whip up a batch this weekend. Very good breakfast for a cold morning.

[Professional Tourist]

Oh man, pastina with butter. A great hot breakfast I haven't had in many years, since I stopped cooking.

Pastina was also a filling, inexpensive dinner in my early days, mixed with a little tomato sauce and ricotta.

[knitwit45]

Not just generational, but also dependent on where you live, Judith. I've never even seen pastini in the stores. The ones in Little Italy, in the Northeast area of KC may have tons of it, but not out in the boonies where I live! I take it you boil it then bake it?

I think I've gained another 5 pounds in the last two days.....