Seeking W
Soups, Stews and comfort foods
Soup season! Time for some yummy soups and comfort foods to grace our tables and warm our bellies. I honestly never was a huge soup fan. As a kid, my mom would make soups around this time of year and everyone else enjoyed all the different types of soups, but I would make a fuss. My mom’s cooking is very good, so all of her soups were delectable, I just preferred carbs and sugar. Now, that I am older and when the temperature changes I start craving wedding soup, potato soup, a scrumptious stew (with a couple of slices of fresh homemade bread with butter, yumm...), chicken dumpling, a mouthwatering french onion soup, etc.
Soups are not the only thing, comfort foods usually filled with cheese and bread find a way into my life. A baked mac and cheese with pieces of crust perfectly crisped in the oven while the ooey-gooeyness below the rift. The prettiest mac and cheese dish your eyes will ever behold, and as you serve your portion you see bites of broccoli poking through. (Honestly, writing this in the wee hours of the morning I feel as though I should somehow find the time to make this delicious meal. Will I? Probably not.) But, it doesn’t stop there.
Chicken pot pies were always a favorite of mine.IwouldeatthemeatfirstsoIcould just get it out of the way, then work on the real prize of this delicious meal. The veggies and crust (truly the crust wins here.... I did say I liked carbs, right?). The buttery yet flaky crust, hearty enough to hold the contents of the meal and yet it never loses the subtleness of the flavors within.
Speaking of subtle flavors within, meatloaf. This was one my mom would make a lot and I knew I always fought her on eating it. Who came up with the idea of making meat into a bread-loaf? My young mind was confused. Why were we eating what to me looked like slabs of cooked meat coming out of the shape and container as bread? I did eat it, begrudgingly, and as time passed the enjoyment of eating meatloaf was adding tally marks in the yes column. I even now make a very good meatloaf.
If you couldn’t tell by my statements of picking out the meat to eat first, or my confusion of meat-loaf, I wasn’t the biggest fan of meat. Still not, but I find other ways to make sure I am getting adequate amounts of protein in my body. Cheese is protein right?
During every Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas... or whenever our family would get together with relatives, I would always find a way to eat maybe one or two bites of the meat on my plate, then slide the remaining on to my mother’s plate, unnoticied. In turn, she would tell me that wasn’t hers and that I needed to eat it and place the meat back on my plate.
With all that being said, meat is somewhat key to making a comfort meal, and I’ve been told, ‘without meat you have no gravy’. So, I guess when making comfort foods and soups this year I will have to add the meat. Just maybe not so much.
“Comfort food is the food that makes us feel good – satisfied, calm, cared for, and carefree. It’s food that fills us up emotionally and physically. … Finding comfort in food is a basic human experience.” – Ellie Krieger
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