OT: Top Comfort Foods

Football is making us miserable, and with the drum run slowly coming to a close only catch and release rockfish stands between me and the winter doldrums. I am like a bear, finding myself drawn to piping hot comfort foods to store enough fat to get me to the winter.

Food discussions are always fire here, however they have tended to focus on restaurants. Let me ask, what are your favorite comfort foods?

1) Hunting camp cast iron skillet fried pork chops and fried potatoes (in the same skillet), bacon-rendered green beans, creamed corn, and apple sauce cake. My father would take me hunting in Craig County, VA, and we always came out of the woods to have Thanksgiving at my aunt's home in Roanoke. While I enjoyed the opportunity to take a shower, the meal was never worthy of a top slot holiday meal. The next night, back in camp, was the main event. I miss that dinner every year my uncle has been gone.

2) Hamburger steak with cream of mushroom soup gravy. This was one of the "fast dinners" that my mom and dad, both hard working professionals, could throw together quickly. As best as I could tell, they would fry hamburgers and then drain the grease into a pot of Campbell's cream of mushroom soup. I have been able to replicate the taste pretty closely, but the consistency has been an issue as I have tried to add this to my cooking repetition.

3) Chicken and Dumplings- my dad prided himself on being the better cook in the family. However, my mom had the market cornered on chicken and dumplings. She would boil a chicken, and then use Bisquick to make foamy soft biscuits, instead of the more pasta like consistency of the dumplings that you get in restaurants. Fellow class of 1996 Abingdon High School graduate Sean Brock did a video with a very similar recipe. I have not been able to replicate the results.

4) Left over sandwiches. My family liked to make roasts (standing rib roast and london broil were my favorites) during Christmas. There was nothing more glorious than to make a sandwich from the left overs the next day.

5) Mom's seafood concoction. Again, with three boys all 3 years apart and both working, dinner was often an exercise in convenience for my parents. My mom came up with a strange dish, but to this day I love it. She would boil egg noodles, and then heat a can of Campbell's New England Clam Chowder. She would then add imitation crab meat to the soup and then serve it over the egg noodles (always with a side of peas.) Most folks gag a bit when I share this meal, but if you get good imitation crab meat, it is an excellent seafood stew type dish.

6) Stewed tomatoes and macaroni. Oddly, this is a dish that I didn't discover until my very late 20s. Take cans of stewed tomatoes, add sugar to taste, cook it down, and serve over elbow macaroni.

7) Pot Roast- pretty straight forward. It is hard to screw up pot roast served over mashed potatoes.