Comfort Food

This past week, a few of us were discussing comfort food. The first thing we noticed was that  each of us could name several comfort foods without any trouble. The next thing we noticed was that each of us had different ideas of what comfort food is and came to the conclusion that comfort food is what comforts me - it's very individual. Some of us thought about food that was ethnic, such as lasagne, smothered enchiladas, or noodles in broth. Others of us described foods from our childhood and because we're different ages, those foods were also different and related to the decade we were children, such as Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, Malt-o-Meal, Spaghettio's, or Pirate's Booty.

We then got even more specific and described the comfort food our Moms made when we were sick. These resulted in "Eww," or "Really?" or "Oh, yum!" Here are some of the comfort foods we crave when we're not feeling well:

• Make a grilled cheese sandwich using white bread and American cheese. Tear grilled sandwich into pieces and place in a bowl. Pour hot cream of tomato soup over the sandwich pieces.
• Make strawberry Jell-o with a lot of bananas sliced into it; make sure to use very overripe bananas. Serve chilled with whipped cream from a can such as Reddi-Whip.
• Make chicken noodle soup with chicken, celery, carrots, and extra-wide egg noodles.
• Make sandwiches from Graham crackers with peanut butter on one side, Marshmallow Fluff on the other side, and chocolate chips in the middle.
• Break saltine crackers into large pieces and put into a bowl. Pour hot milk over the crackers and top with sugar.
• Cook some white rice and when cooked, stir in applesauce and ground cinnamon.
• Make creamy mashed potatoes and near the end of mashing them, add shredded cheese.
• Heat a bowl of your favorite ice cream in the microwave until it's completely melted.
• Peel, core, and slice tart apples. Saute them in butter, sugar, and cinnamon until very soft. Serve plain, or with vanilla ice cream, or with whipped cream.
• Warm dark chocolate pudding.
• Warm homemade cookies (especially chocolate chip, snickerdoodles, oatmeal raisin, or ginger snaps) and serve with ice cold milk.
• Yogurt with your favorite topping such as chocolate syrup, maple syrup, caramel syrup, sugared and mashed berries, etc.