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BS: Comfort food
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Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food From: beardedbruce Date: 16 Jul 04 - 09:13 AM What are they? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food From: Sandra in Sydney Date: 16 Jul 04 - 09:53 AM lamingtons are Australia's national cake (or would that be pavlova?) butter cake cut in squares, covered in choccie icing then rolled in dessicated coconut. They are made in their zillions on every fundraising occasion & might be the Oz version of US Girl Scout cookies. I'm not a sweet tooth (my Goddess figure is maintained by savoury food!!), so my comfort foods include the skin of roasted chicken, yummy toasted cheese on thick grainy/seedy bread with mini-tomatoes or tinned mushrooms in vinegar below the cheese, Corn chippies, salt & vinegar chippies, cashews, and fruit including sultana grapes, cherries & a fresh date most days (it's the sweetest thing I eat) 11.45pm, normally time for a spot of yoghurt & a date, but the dates finished yesterday (waaaaahhhh), & I don't feel hungry sandra ps Pavlova = meringue base full of fruit & cream, which reminds me of a very tummy & delicious taste reat recommended by a friend - fresh date dipped in rich (unsweetened) cream. hmmm, maybe I'll get some cream tomorrow along with the dates & the other groceries. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food From: Bert Date: 16 Jul 04 - 10:08 AM By fresh dates do you mean the yellow or purple ones, crunchy and fresh from the palm, or the freshly dried ones? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food From: beardedbruce Date: 16 Jul 04 - 10:11 AM Joybell; Reese's peanut butter cups come in two sizes, now- full size, about 1.5 to 2 inches, and small ones about 1 inch. They also have Reese's Pieces ( of ET fame) that are like M&Ms with peanut butter. Let me know what you want, and send an address... Not sure if we need to pay customs on it- so I will make it a gift- that should work... 8={E |
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Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 16 Jul 04 - 10:51 AM In my younger days, our church youth group took orders for over 200 dozen lamingtons... we made about 120 dozen that night with all of us working, but about 2 am or so, the adults decided that we would call it quits. The uncut trays were taken back to the baker. We didn't touch lamingtons for a few months.... but still like them now... Prefer the very small ones to the large ones - more chocolate that way! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food From: MMario Date: 16 Jul 04 - 11:04 AM I was just researching lamingtons - in the pictures it looks like your "dessicated coconut" is almost a powder - the closest US equivilant would be more "shreds" - makes a big difference in the look - and I suspect the mouth feel. Probably not so much the taste. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food From: Ellenpoly Date: 16 Jul 04 - 11:36 AM CHEESE! The problem is that my body is no longer happy with this comfort food, making it uncomfortable (and mighty smelly) to eat. Sigh. ..xx..e |
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Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food From: Joybell Date: 16 Jul 04 - 07:04 PM What a wonderful friend you are beardedbruce. Would you like a CD in exchange? Might be easier to send than lamingtons. Of course you are welcome here anytime to be fed lamingtons or whatever. I'll send you my address. Regards Joy |
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Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food From: Sorcha Date: 16 Jul 04 - 07:43 PM Pizza. Chile..either red or green. Lasagne. Meatloaf made MY way. Baked (jacket) potatoes with toppings. Potato soup or almost any kind of soup (in winter) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 16 Jul 04 - 09:14 PM Dessicated coconut is the dried shredded form, not a powder in Australia. It may look like a powder in a photo, but that is because the chocolate flavoured liquid causes quite a lot of the coconut to adhere, some of it soaking up and turning brown as well as sticking well. Robin |
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Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food From: open mike Date: 16 Jul 04 - 09:39 PM Violet Crumble!! That is the OZ treat that would be great to have! I would gladly send Reeses, although there is now a similar product made by Paul Newman's Own brand--i think there may be 3 cups in a pkg. they make choc. mint ones too! http://www.newmansown.com/ plus it is a better company to support that many other food manufacturers. they donate a lot to charity, and are careful what ingredients they use...ORGANIC. http://www.newmansownorganics.com/food_peanut.html however the violet crumble is made by nestle' which i remeber one time boycotting because they hired nurse impersonators to advertise baby formula.. but ooh those violet crumbles are like nothing in the world! (well they are almost like chocolate malted milk balls...) http://www.nestle.com.au/schoolprojects/violetcrumble/body.asp |
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Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food From: PoppaGator Date: 17 Jul 04 - 01:41 PM I hadn't even thought to consider candy, but the mention of Reese's p.b. cups (a favorite of mine, readily available everywhere here in the US) reminds me of a couple of items I need to add to my list: Malted Milk Balls -- nowadays available mostly under the brnd name "Whoppers," packaged in waxed-cardboard milk-carton style boxes. Equally enjoyable whether chomped up whole or savored slowly by scraping the chocolate coating offv first and then letting the malted-milk innards melt in your month. Candy corn, aka "chicken corn," most commonly found around Halloween time. Pure sugar, low class, definitely a guilty pleasure. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food From: Stilly River Sage Date: 17 Jul 04 - 01:58 PM It looks like you've all veered into the "comfort snack" territory. I can't imagine coming in after a long day, starving, wanting an old favorite--and sitting down to a plate of lamingtons. Though I can imagine a very nice morning tea break with a strong cup of English breakfast tea and a handful of those little Cadbury easter eggs (a really good firm dark chocolate with a thin hard colored shell). I discovered that combination by happy accident one time--and I'm careful not to indulge too often because it can be habit forming. SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food From: JennyO Date: 17 Jul 04 - 02:19 PM My dessert tonight reminded me of another one of my comfort foods - apple crumble and custard just like grandma used to make - and the one John makes is every bit as good. Yum! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food From: Tracey Dragonsfriend Date: 17 Jul 04 - 03:24 PM Mmmm... comfort food... and it's cold & teeming with rain (in JULY!!), and now I want to EAT... Mum's potato & carrot soup, with toast Nanny's beef stew and dumplings, with mashed potatoes and mashed swede Spaghetti (Heinz, in a tin) on thick, buttered toast Mum's steak & kidney pudding Rice Creamola (a flavoured ground rice you boil up with milk, that you can't get any more) Mum's plaice & prawn roll-ups with mashed potatoes, when you're ill Chocolate pudding (hot cake) with chocolate custard You may have guessed that I LOVE my Mum's cooking! Still, she is a cookery teacher, so I have a good excuse. I can make all these things (except the Rice Creamola I can't get) myself, but they're just not the same... Cheers Tracey Dragonsfriend www.scorchpyro.co.uk |
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Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food From: Joybell Date: 17 Jul 04 - 07:12 PM MMario, Yes American True-love calls the coconut on lamingtons "shredded" we call it shredded when it's in slightly bigger pieces. True-love hates the stuff. He's one of those people to whom the term "comfort food" has no meaning he says. You're quite right though, Stilly River Sage, there is a difference between "comfort snack" and "comfort food". I'm keen to try all the wonderful porridgey things here including yours. Here's the nearest thing to comfort food that I cook for True-love: 1. Chop 2 big brown onions and fry gently in 1 cup of olive oil. While these are browning - 2. Wash 1+3/4 cups of brown lentils and simmer in 6 cups of water with 1 dessertspoon of salt, 1 teaspoon of black pepper,+ 1 dessertspoon mixed herbs. AND at the same time- 3. Put 2 cups of long-grain white rice in a bowl of water to soak. Cool your heels for a bit - about 20 mins or so until the lentils are soft and the onions brown. BUT don't go away and leave the boiling oil! Then Rinse and drain the rice and add it to the lentils and water. Add the onions and oil to the same pot. Simmer very gently for exactly 20 minutes. Be brave about the amount of oil because it feeds about 12 people, or 2 people about 6 times, in our case. It freezes well. Joy |
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Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food From: jack halyard Date: 17 Jul 04 - 08:18 PM One particularly nice one is a three egg bread and butter custard. I marinate sultanas in something alcoholic like Marsala or brandy, soft brown sugar and mixed spices. Meanwhile I butter a few slices of bread and beat up three eggs in milk. I then tear the bread up into approximately quarters, layer it in an oven dish with the lively sultanas. I pour the remaining marinade over the lot and squeeze it through the bread a bit. Finally I pour the egg mix over the top, press it with a fork to ensure absorption by the bread and bake in an oven at about 180 till cooked through. The interesting smell is usually a good indicator. On a bitter day with a howling Southerly outside, such as the current moment, this is a treat straight out of the oven. Only matched by Jenny O's apple crumbly, but I'm sure she'll tell yez all about that. Cheers, Jack Halyard. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food From: jack halyard Date: 17 Jul 04 - 08:33 PM Oh, looking back through the thread I notice Jenny O' HAS told you about the apple crumble. All that stuff about bread and salted dripping takes my back to my childhood. Mum used dripping to cook her superb Yorkshire puds with roast beef, as well as a traditional bread puddining which did not seem to use eggs. I remember one freezing night in Canberra, Australia, when a group of us were camping out to guard an outdoors theatre set we'd built. Somebody's mum arrived with several thermoses of coffee and two huge pans of a bread pud, steaming hot and crammed tight with sultanas, raisins and mixed peels. Comfort food!? I sit back and sigh. This is a very nice thread. Jack Halyard. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food From: JennyO Date: 17 Jul 04 - 10:06 PM Oh, I see that John (jack halyard) called it MY apple crumble. Well I did tell him how grandma used to make it, but he was the one who actually made it last night. His alcoholic bread and butter custard with sultanas is to live for, too (I'd rather say live for than die for). Jenny |
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Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food From: Stilly River Sage Date: 18 Jul 04 - 03:29 AM Translation on the three egg bread and butter custard: 180o C is equal to 356o F. That sounds like a wonderful recipe! (I searched for a converter and found this. I attempted a cut and paste with the result, but got an interesting effect when I tried the usual right click on the selected text. I had to use ^C instead). SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food From: beardedbruce Date: 18 Jul 04 - 06:46 AM Joybell, Sitting here with a bag of peanut butter M&Ms, and a mug of ginger tea. Haven't found the Reese's Pieces yet ( only checked one store) but I have the regular and mini Reese's cups. Now if I can find a box before they evaporate... (BG) 8-{E |
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Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food From: Sooz Date: 18 Jul 04 - 07:22 AM I'll go along with the bread and butter pudding and the jacket potatoes (baked in the oven not the microwave) and add toast. Particularly cheese and marmite bread toasted late at night. (See recipe in Mudcat cookbook!) I have to admit that dripping is the only thing this vegetarian remembers wistfully! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food From: GUEST,Vladimir the Inhaler Date: 18 Jul 04 - 07:44 AM Freshly skinned bat, still wriggling, preferably with its tummy full of blood, eaten quickly, use bones as toothpicks when finished. Vlad |
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Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food From: Bert Date: 18 Jul 04 - 01:40 PM Mmmm, Yummy! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food From: Joybell Date: 18 Jul 04 - 11:59 PM beardedbruce, I can almost taste the Reese's cups. Would you like a CD to listen to while you sip your tea and eat your treats? Joy-with-her-mouth-watering. We used to work for a lady who owned a winery. She used to say "You can feel it doing you BAD!" every time she presented her double-chocolate mud-cake. Joy |
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Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food From: beardedbruce Date: 21 Jul 04 - 09:05 AM Joybell: Watch your mail... 8-{E |
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Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food From: GUEST,MMario Date: 21 Jul 04 - 09:20 AM freshly made applesauce - with a bit of cinnamon, just the barest hint of nutmeg, sweetened a hair with brown sugar and served warm with a big dollop of vanilla ice cream in the center of the bowl. Now that's a comfort snack! A dessert my Mom used to make - grape juice sweetened and thickened with cornstarch; then sweet dumplings cooked in the juice. Serve the dumplings with the fruit sauce over them. Delicious!!!!! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food From: GUEST,Mr Red in a hurry at the library Date: 21 Jul 04 - 09:36 AM Buckling? if that is anything like scratchings it is banned under the BSE (Offal) rules. You can get the "so called" scratchings which experts (the people selling it) will assure you they are scratchings but pig skin was only ever a small part of scratchings because traditionally they sold the skin for hide and rendered any unsold bits for lard. The residue left they sold in pubs, fed to horses, sold in pubs and banned (in chronological order). But pigskin (cooked) was always called crackling or real leather (uncooked). No comfort there anymore. Now I might have nominated Treacle (that's the black stuff we now call Black Treacle" not the syrup what is gloden and should ideally be referred to as Golden Syrup) However does an aphrodisiac qualify as comfort food? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food From: Stilly River Sage Date: 21 Jul 04 - 10:09 AM Eewwwwww. . . |
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Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food From: Bert Date: 21 Jul 04 - 10:44 AM Buckling is a herring, chosen for it's large roe and hot smoked. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food From: Stilly River Sage Date: 21 Jul 04 - 10:52 AM I like a bit of pickled herring now and then--it is very rich. Comfort food when I was growing up included salmon (usually baked with a little butter and garlic-mmmmm--no fancy sauces--don't gild that lily!) At one time it was less expensive than beef in the Northwest (U.S.). A LONG time ago. . . SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food From: Bert Date: 21 Jul 04 - 10:58 AM Salmon can still be fairly reasonable if you shop around for it. You can sometimes, about once a year, find whole salmon for around a dollar a pound, so you buy a few and stick them in the freezer. You smoke one or two first though. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food From: GUEST Date: 21 Jul 04 - 11:04 AM Stilly River Sage You like fish and garlic? And turn your nose up at Treacle? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm Eeeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww doesn't even begin |
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Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food From: Stilly River Sage Date: 21 Jul 04 - 11:26 AM Bert, you know what that $1 a pound salmon tastes like? Cardboard. What we get down here at that price is the little bland silvers (a light pink fish) that hardly have any flavor. But on occasion I've found some of the more flavorful larger whole red salmon on a really good sale for between $3 and $4 a pound. Then I take it home and smoke some and freeze some and eat some right away. Amazingly, this summer we got Copper River salmon down here (a variety of King salmon) for just under $6 a pound at Sam's, of all places. If I bought it at Whole Foods it would be closer to $15-$20. It goes fast. It seems to me that Sam's didn't know what they were selling, but I wasn't about to tell them! I had some friends pass through town on the day I discovered the salmon, so I bought a large piece, raced home and made a loaf of crusty Italian bread, cut some chard from the garden to steam, served my fresh garden tomatoes on the side, and set up the charcoal grill (started with newspaper--no starter fluid hydrocarbons came near this treasure) and prepared it with olive oil and garlic before grilling. After all of this we had a homemade apple cobbler for dessert. From the moment they walked in the door that meal was viscerally satisfying and a pleasure to serve to three such good friends (who converged after traveling from several different places around the U.S., who all specialize in American Indian literature, and who have heard about the Northwest delicacy of grilled salmon). The smell of the fresh bread, the grilled fish, and the baking apples (with the cinnamon and nutmeg that MMario mentioned in the applesauce above) was perfect. We had a nice bottle of Chateau St. Michele (from Washington State) Johannesburg Riesling with it. I've never experienced treacle, so have nothing to go by. My "eewwwww" had to do with the various renderings (pun intended) of pig skin. SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food From: Bert Date: 21 Jul 04 - 03:23 PM Yup there is sometimes a difference in quality, but how it tastes does depend on how you cook it. And it always tastes better than any other fish that you can buy for the same price. We saw this whole red salmon in the fish market in Philadelphia a couple of years ago. It was $1.50 a pound. Trouble was it must have weighed over 50 pounds and we had nowhere to store it at the time. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food From: beardedbruce Date: 21 Jul 04 - 04:44 PM Here on the East Coast ( US) Atlantic ssalmon is all farmed- and dyed, since no-one would buy the gray fish that comes out of the ponds. Only Pacific salmon is pink or red- but it does get down to $1.50 a pound or so, at times. Usually about 5 pounds /fish, so they can be smoked easily. Not sure I would want to deal with a 50 pound salmon! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 21 Jul 04 - 09:10 PM Actually Treacle has lots of mineral stuff - it's produced near the end of the processing chain. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food From: Joybell Date: 21 Jul 04 - 10:15 PM Open mike, Give me your address. I'd love to return the favour that beardedbruce is doing for me. We can pass this thing around. Cheers Joy |
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Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food From: beardedbruce Date: 22 Jul 04 - 06:16 AM Joybell- Sounds good to me- if we all just make one other person's day, the world would be a much nicer place for everyone. 8-{E |
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Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food From: beardedbruce Date: 22 Jul 04 - 07:00 AM BTW, Reese's Pieces are no longer being made... Seems that Hershey bought Reese's, and has it's own peanut butter M&M. The white chocolate Reese's Peanut butter cups are not worth getting, though. I am not sure what the reason for white chocolate is... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food From: beardedbruce Date: 22 Jul 04 - 04:30 PM so, should I start a thread on white chocolate, or can anyone tell me whythere is such a thing? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food From: PoppaGator Date: 22 Jul 04 - 04:54 PM Bruce, I wish I could help. I read a book on chocolate a couple of months ago which addressed this very question, but I can't remember the details. White chocolate includes some but not all of the ingredients of "regular" chocolate; I'm pretty sure that it contains cocoa butter (among other things), but I couldn't tell you exactly what component is missing. I like white chocolate well enough in some contexts, but generally prefer the brown stuff -- especially dark/semi-sweet (moreso than milk-) chocolate. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 22 Jul 04 - 07:23 PM I prefer the dark 85% Lindt - I will eat a little of the white - but I find it too sweet. As far as I know, the white omits the cocoa powder, I do think that it has the coca butter. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food From: Stilly River Sage Date: 22 Jul 04 - 11:26 PM The white stuff just doesn't taste like chocolate. I picked up a really nice imported bar of dark chocolate with dried cranberries a few weeks ago (at a Russian cafe). Semi-sweet tastes most like chocolate, because it doesn't seem to be so full of emulsifiers. That's why it's also more expensive. SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food From: Joybell Date: 23 Jul 04 - 03:00 AM I think white chocolate is ok in it's way but it needs a new name. How can you have non-chocolate coloured chocolate. It needs to be called albino something. I'm reading up about Violet Crumbles. They were part of my childhood but I never thought to wonder about their origins. Seems they were named by Abel Hoadley's wife whose favourite flower was the violet. Hoadley's chocolate company was bought up by another Australian confectionary company and then later by Nestles. True-love says he doesn't remember an American equivalent of Violet Crumbles - or of "honeycomb" - which is the centre bit. We made "honeycomb" at home when I was a kid. Off to town next week to post off the treats to open mike. Joy |
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Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 23 Jul 04 - 03:01 AM Real chocolate doesn't have emulsifiers - the cocoa is ground for much longer than in 'compounded chocolate' - which isn't real chocolate at all.... it has oils and fats other than cocoa butter, which is why they use emulsifiers. Belgian chocolate is actually better than Swiss. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food From: Ellenpoly Date: 23 Jul 04 - 05:16 AM I just had a huge bowl of egg salad. It was very comforting. ..xx..e |
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Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food From: Helen Date: 25 Jul 04 - 11:59 PM Slow cooked beef in red wine sauce, with lots of onions and big chunks of potatoes, or whole baby potatoes. That's my latest fad. Cauliflower & bacon soup - sounds ordinary but it isn't. Made with some onions, cauliflower, bacon & stock and then puree it. Pretty simple, but the first time I had it was at a local cafe, after a meeting straight after work so I had had no dinner, and it was teeming with rain, and cold outside. Sandra, try chopped dates and chopped banana, mixed into cream and left in the frig for a couple of hours. The dates and bananas "soggify" and the dates release their spicy fragrance into the cream. Turkish green beans on rice - slow cooked in tomato mixture with paprika and a couple of other flavours. I add carrot chunks too. I haven't quite got the trick of making them taste like the ones at my favourite Turkish restaurant, though. Chopped up sausages, fried briefly then mixed with tomatoes and onions and slowly cooked in a frypan until the sausages soak up the tomato and onion flavours. Even my mostly vegetarian Dad liked that for a change. Helen |
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Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food From: Blackcatter Date: 26 Jul 04 - 12:21 AM Ellen Now you got me imagining you eating egg salad. mmmmmmm . . . |
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Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food From: el ted Date: 26 Jul 04 - 06:20 AM 100. I thank you. |
