Remember your family’s favorite “comfort meal?” Share it with us & you could go on a $200 shopping spree!
Summer is fading fast, and when the weather turns colder, sometimes even the healthiest eaters find themselves splurging on their favorite “comfort dish!” You know the kind…recipes your mom made without worrying about using processed foods – or about fat, sodium and calorie content!
What’s your favorite family comfort meal? Share it with our readers – the writer of our favorite recipe will receive an e-gift card for $200 at Solutions.com. You can even share your e-gift card with a friend or family member for a wonderful gift!
Submit your memory of your or your family’s comfort meal (along with the full recipe, if you like) in the comments section by midnight on Tuesday, September 22 PDT. We’ll feature our favorite post and, if you provide a recipe, archive it in our recipes section.
Here’s a comfort food recipe from Solutions team member, Jenn:
“When I was a kid, my Mom sometimes made a Friday-night dish that she called ‘Red Bunny.’ She mixed together a can of condensed tomato soup with a cup of Cheez Whiz®, heated it on the stove, then poured it over toast. It was quick, easy to make, and definitely not all that good for you, but we loved it! When I became an adult, I came across a recipe for Welsh Rarebit, and I’m guessing that this must be where my Mom’s recipe originated.”
Thanks to everyone for the wonderful submissions, comments for this post are now closed.
Throughout my childhood one of the things that I could always remember is when my mom popped popcorn. No air popper for us, no Jiffy pop. My Mom had a big old Wegner pot that she would use on the stove to pop the corn. Sometimes we would hear the corn being dropped into the pan to be popped, other times, we would simply begin to smell it, no matter where we were in the house. Either way, it was so comforting and exciting to me. Every time was like the first time and it was only popcorn!
My family’s favorite comfort food was pinto beans cooked with ground beef and diced tomatoes. Mom would cook a big pan of oven cornbread, and we would pig out!!
That sounds good, I think I’ll cook some this weekend!!!
Still remember the warm Johnny cake served with syrup and bacon if we had some. Mother doubled the recipe and baked it in 9×13 pan.
RECIPE
1 cup yellow cornmeal
2 cups sifted flour
1/2 up sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 Tablespoons butter- melted
1 beaten egg
1 1/2 cup sweet milk
Stir dry ingredients together, add butter. Stir in the egg and milk-the batter might be quite lumpy. Turn into a well greased 8×8 pan and bake about 30 minutes in a 375 oven.
Tater Tot Casserole…I can’t say this was a favorite food of mine but I remember it being a staple in our household growing up!
Mom’s recipe:
1 lb. hamburger
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 small onion diced
1/2 pkg. dried onion soup mix
1 lb. pkg. tater tots
1 16oz. container of sour cream
salt and pepper to taste
Brown hamburger, add diced onion, 1/2 pkg. dried onion soup mix, dash salt and pepper. Place in a casserole dish. Lightly stir in 1/3rd can of cream of mushroom soup, 16oz. container sour cream. Sprinkle tater tots to cover mixture,add remainder of cream of mushroom soup. Bake 30-35 minutes in a 350 oven.
Our family sunday dinner. Southern fryed chicken cooked in iron skilet. mash potoes,gravy , corn and home made bisquit.colber/pie of the fruit in season.
Mom browned cube steak and put it in the oven to cook slowly and tenderize, then made a gravy with Campbell’s mushroom soup to put over mashed potatoes. A serving of Bisquick buiscuts added to the treat, one we loved so much that we did not complain about the serving of green vegetables we had to eat. We were poor, but that meal made us feel like royalty!
We knew cooler weather was here to stay when my mother made country fried steak. For whatever reason, we did not have this in the warm weather months. She bought “tenderized” steaks, floured them and fried them in oil with lots of sliced onions. Once browned, liquid was added and the skillet was covered until the steaks were done. Then they were taken out of the skillet, a nice milk gravy was made, in the same iron skillet,and poured over these yummy steaks. The rest of the meal varied, though we always had mashed potatoes and melt-in-your-mouth homemade yeast rolls. This was the entree the first time my then fiancee came to dinner. That was almost fifty years ago!!! I almost never make it now, but when I do there is a warm spot in my heart and in my memory.
Watching sports on Sunday afternoons meant Rotel dip!
1 full block of Velveeta
1 can of Rotel diced tomatoes and chiles
Melt it all together in the microwave. Then use it as your dip for tortilla chips.
This recipe, passed down from my working Mom while caring for us 4 girls and our working Dad, requires only 5 ingredients, which we always seemed to have in the cabinets to fall back on. This especially came in handy during those winter nights we would get snowed in before restocking the fridge. It also takes very little time- if you cook the chicken and rice at the same time, 20-30 minutes tops. Here is my preferred preparation, with no rush; perfect for bad-weather days:
Rice
Milk
Cream of Chicken Soup
Cream of Broccoli Soup
1 lb of chicken breast, cooked & cubed
Once the chicken has browned, stir together both cans of soup and 2 cans nearly full of milk until smooth. Pour this into the chicken, stirring the chicken brownings into the mix, and leave on medium to heat and thicken. Stir often to prevent milk mixture from scorching. Cook rice according to package directions. As a rule, my mother always taught:
1 cup rice to 2 cups water
This is a good general measure for a small family, depending on the amount each prefers; however, the rule can be adjusted accordingly to appropriate for more or less guests. (You may double this when guests are over, or to simply cook for yourself; cut down to ½ cup rice to 1 cup water!)
By the time the rice is done, the soup mixture should be hot and steaming. Remove from heat and allow to cool slightly before pouring directly over rice. I always do this on separate plates so I may season accordingly-or not at all for the picky ones. I personally choose Cream of Broccoli soup since it is an easy way to get my family to eat broccoli, but for your own family you can substitute Chicken with Herbs, Cream of Mushroom, or even Cheese Soup to spice this recipe up and keep this stick-to-your-tummy meal tasting new! Simple cheese or grilled cheese sandwiches also taste terrific alongside this rich, gooey dish.
Mom used to make mac and cheese with Velvetta cheese. She melted the cheese in a saucepan with just enough milk to make it nice and creamy then pour it over the macaroni in a cassarole. On the top she put a layer of toasted bread bread crumbs and put it into the oven until the cheese mixture started to bubble around the edges of the bread crumbs. Yummy!!
Another dish I especially loved was mac and tomato soup. She cooked a can of tomato soup with 1/2 can of milk. until boiling, then poured it over some cooked macaroni. I used to make this when I was in college and wanted a warm little bit of home!
Seems like my favorites are always those that warm my stomach, as well as my heart. My mom
used tp make a wonderful Finnish stew….simple and hearty:
1.5-2 lbs beef stew meat, tossed in a little flour
1.5 onion, sliced and cut crosswise
Cook beef in 2+ tbsp oil until browned, add onion and stir together. Add water to cover and simmer
an hour or so. Add:
salt & peppercorns (1-1.5 tsp)
10-15 whole allspice
carrots,
celery, and
potatoes, cut up into chunks (in whatever ratio you like)
More water, to cover.
Continue to simmer until tender….one-half hour to 45 minutes. The broth is fantastic….use some
good, hearty, buttered bread to sop it up.
My mom would make the best stew in winter. First she would brown the onions in butter, add the stew meat and brown that. She would put the meat in a pressure cooker for ten minutes. While cooking the meat she would peel the carrots and potatoes. She would then add that to the meat along with a can of mushroom soup.
and would start the pressure cooker again for at least 1/2 hour. The meal was quick and the carrots just melted in your mouth. She always had to make extra carrots and potatoes to satisfy the family.
My Mom would add water to the pressure cooker, just enough to cover he meat.
My favorite food when I was small and is still today was when Mom put milk in a sauce pan, butter and salt and pepper and just before it boiled would add noodles. We called the dish milk noodles..I still get cravings for it today.
Our favorite comfort food recipe was always chicken broccoli rice casserole. The recipe wasn’t anything extraordinary, just the basic rice, can of cream of mushroom soup, can of cream of chicken soup, frozen broccoli, rice, water, cheese, butter, recipe you can find in any fundraiser cookbook. It was just so warm and creamy and comforting, we all loved it.
I am sure my parents loved it because it was hearty, filling, cheap, and NONE of us kids ever fussed about it.