Comfort Food Recipes
Almost every Sunday morning growing up, my father would make a huge apple coffee cake for us after church. Recently I pulled this recipe from the Boston Globe; they had it listed as an apple cake for the Jewish high...
It's apple season here in New England, where I am visiting my goddaughter and her family. We went apple picking a few days ago and came home with so many apples, we'll be cooking with them all week. Today the...
What better on a chilly day than a plate of steaming hot beef stew with light, fluffy dumplings? My super-hero father decided to make goulash for us recently and when the first recipe he tried didn't work out (go figure...
According to the Wikipedia, Beef Stroganoff was invented by a chef working for a Russian general, Count Pavel Stroganov, in the 1890s. It became popular in the U.S. in the 1950s from servicemen returning from Europe and China after WWII...
As some of you may be aware, California has been hit with some stormy weather recently. We warm-weather low-landers don't do cold and wet too well and for the last several days of rainy and cold I've been craving some...
From the recipe archives, perfect for cold weather. ~Elise My mother grew up in a house where there was constant entertaining. My nana was somewhat of a social bee and even I remember how every night was a party night...
Recently at dinner my father instructed me, "tell your website readers that your dad says this is a good one." Done, dad. This chicken was good - perfectly tender, well flavored, crunchy - just what one wants in fried chicken...
Most kids grow up learning how to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches so they can help themselves in the kitchen when they want some lunch. In our family, it was cheese tacos. It's our stand-by what-do-you-make-when-you-haven't-really-thought-about-it-in-advance lunch. There's always...
My friend Michelle loves to throw big parties, with plenty of food and plenty of friends. I think it must be the large Italian family thing, one is never at a loss for food or great company at her house...
My father's childhood friends Dick and Doris came to visit us last week from Chicago (by train!) and brought the most wonderful gift - a copy of the Marshall Field's Cookbook (sometimes available on eBay), from the famed Chicago department...
Chicken and dumplings - the ultimate comfort food. When we were kids, my mother used to make chicken and dumplings for us by simply adding Bisquick biscuit dough to chicken stew. We would always fight over the dumplings. (Ever wonder...
Have you ever had the soup can classic chicken rice casserole? I admit, I have not, though the idea of it intrigued me recently. It sort of reminds me of my mother's arroz con pollo, but with mushrooms and without...
So much of our enjoyment of foods comes from the memories they evoke, don't you think? Cinnamon toast. Just saying the words and I see myself 8 years old sitting at our dining room table with assorted siblings, elbowing each...
Why do I love meatloaf? It reminds me of being a kid. Where does one get meatloaf other than at home or at a school cafeteria? When I lived in San Francisco I bought meatloaf already mixed and seasoned from...
From the recipe archive, for St. Patrick's Day, enjoy! ~Elise Last year for St. Patrick's Day, my friend Suzanne had me over for dinner with her family and served the tastiest corned beef and cabbage dish. Usually we prepare corned...
The debate usually begins like this. ME: Dad, how do you make your hash browns turn out so crispy? DAD: Use a potato ricer. It's the only thing I've found that really gets the moisture out of the potatoes. The...
A classic American dish that one can't easily find in restaurants (unless it is a cafeteria) is stuffed bell peppers. It's essentially meatloaf stuffed into red or green bell peppers and baked in the oven. My mom and dad have...
Shepherd's Pie is an English dish, traditionally made with lamb or mutton. Americans typically make Shepherd's Pie with beef. The English (and Australians and New Zealanders) call the beef dish a "cottage pie". Naming conventions aside, Shepherd's Pie is essentially...
A dear friend of mine from Alabama called me recently and demanded to know, "why aren't there any grits on your site?!" Uh, because I'm not Southern and I don't know what the heck I'm talking about when it comes...
What to do with leftover Easter ham? If it's still chilly where you are, warm up quickly with a simple potato leek soup with some added chopped ham. This is one of our standby recipes when we have extra ham...
Rachael Ray has nothing on my mother. As far as this family is concerned, my mom invented healthful, delicious comfort food that one can cook in 30 minutes or less. This hamburger and macaroni dish has been served in our...
Simply Recipes reader Alton Hoover sent me his favorite recipe for lasagna which he has been cooking up since college days. His original recipe created enough lasagna for a small army so I halved it. What is posted here will...
This isn't a quick and easy lasagna. This is a slow and divine lasagna. A memorable lasagna. And we have a reader of Simply Recipes to thank for it. Several months ago a commenter on this site, by the name...
Half recipe pictured. The holiday season is around the corner and we are already trying out recipes in preparation. This one comes from an old issue (December 1998) of Bon Appétit magazine. Smothering yams this way, in brown sugar and...
Stuffed bell peppers is one of those classic comfort food dishes that my family practically lived on when I was a kid. This recipe my mother got from Adele Davis as mom was teaching herself to cook in the 60s...
New England boiled dinner is a one pot dish consisting of corned beef or plain beef brisket or smoked picnic ham shoulder, with cabbage, carrots and potatoes. When made with corned beef, it's an Irish-American corned beef and cabbage dish...
My father discovered this potato gratin recipe in Bon Appetit magazine and it has since become a family favorite. With cream, cheese, onions, and potatoes, how can one go wrong? Unless of course you are on a diet, in which...
When we were kids, my mother used to make this Parmesan chicken that was so good we would fight for drippings, every last crumb. She would use boneless, skinless chicken (after having de-boned a whole chicken and then used the...
There has been much written on the best way to make mashed potatoes - how long you cook them, with peel or without, reserving some of the cooking liquid, etc. etc. I have discovered that the real trick to creamy...
My father found this recipe in a recent Sunset Magazine and it sounded so good he just had to try it. He even made the polenta from scratch instead of using the store-bought prepared version which the original recipe called...
Pot roast was a standard growing up, and still continues to be in my parent's household. It requires slow cooking over low heat to ensure tender, flavorful meat. Pot roasts typically use the tougher cuts of beef - a chuck...
Summer is the season for cookouts and potato salad, isn't it? Our standard usually includes pickle juice and hard boiled eggs. Here's a completely different take on a summer potato salad, seasoned with mustard, bacon, and the taste that makes...
Pulled pork sandwiches can hardly be called sandwiches. The sauce soaks into the buns and if you tried to pick one up with your hands it would completely fall apart. Well, perhaps if you used a sturdier bun, and wrapped...
A few months ago I prepared macaroni and cheese this way for some young friends in a sly attempt to broaden their Mac-Cheese horizons away from Kraft. At first the girls were tentative, but as there was no other lunch...
Something tells me we're not the only ones who get excited over beans and rice. Do you? Rarely a week goes by that we don't have beans of some sort or another, and my mother's chili beans with rice are...
Raising six kids on a teacher's salary, my parents were always cooking on a budget. Being Catholic, with the Lenten requirement of meatless Fridays, this meant that we ate a lot of tuna macaroni salad and fried fish. Frequently mom...
There are many ways to make delicious scalloped potatoes. For this version, I consulted several books - Kitchen Sense, two James Beards, and the Joy of Cooking. Basically you layer thinly sliced potatoes with any number of extras - cheese...
From the recipe archive, a warm dish for a chilly day! ~Elise Just hearing the words "sloppy joe" from my mother used to send us kids into a tizzy. There was something wonderfully fun about getting to eat a burger/sandwich...
This corn bread is packed with cheese, onions, and whole corn, and flavored with bacon drippings. Need I say more? Recipe courtesy of my friend Lynn R. of Newton, Mass., who I think adapted it from one in The Southern...
Spareribs with sauerkraut is something I've never had outside of my own home. My father claims that there are restaurants in Minnesota (where he grew up) that serve them. But I certainly have never seen them as a menu item...
Updated, from the recipe archives. First published 2006. ~Elise There's something about winter that just begs for the making of split pea soup, wouldn't you agree? Like the proverbial groundhog, who failing to see his shadow, retreats into the comfort...
Why is it that baked beans are so popular around the Fourth of July, but making them usually requires several hours of baking in a hot oven? Where we live it gets pretty darn sizzling in the summer and the...
A reader emailed the other day asking if I was Austrian on account of the sauerkraut and cabbage recipes on Simply Recipes. My father's grandparents on both sides were from Austria and he grew up with many traditional German and...
Swiss steak is a method of slow-cooking a relatively tough cut of beef, such as a round steak. The meat is browned, and then braised in a tomato sauce. According to The American Century Cookbook, recipes first starting showing up...
From the recipe archive We've been in a nostalgic mood lately, thinking of some of our favorite dishes from years past. One that my father remembered that my grandmother used to make was a egg noodle ground beef casserole, with...
Tamale Pie is one of those quintessential American pot-luck casserole dishes. It was probably invented by someone who had a taste of a real tamale and tried to recreate the flavor in a cornbread casserole. I always loved tamale pie...
One of my favorite desserts growing up was tapioca pudding. You don't see it that much anymore. Kids get pre-made over-sugared puddings from the grocery store. My parents don't make it that often as it requires too much (for them...
3-bean salad is one of those quintessential American summer picnic foods. It's usually made with canned green beans instead of the cannellini white beans I'm using here. But I really don't care for canned green beans, so cannellini it is...
Baked beans are just the thing for a blustery day. My father pulled this recipe out of Bon Appétit magazine years ago and we've been enjoying its tangy, rich flavor ever since. A great side dish to pork or steak.
Almost every other Friday growing up my mother would serve the family this tuna macaroni salad. With six kids she loved this standard; it was easy to make, filling, relatively inexpensive, and best, we all gobbled it up.
Updated from the recipe archive. Originally posted in 2005. Tetrazzini is an American pasta dish that includes a cream sauce, mushrooms, and either chicken, turkey, or seafood. It is thought to have been invented in San Francisco and named after...
Sometimes deciding what to make for dinner comes starts with the inspiration of just one ingredient. A friend of mine sent us some wonderful blue cheese this week and my father decided that he wanted to make twice baked potatoes...
We've had some wonderfully cold, rainy, winter storms here lately in Northern California. This soup is the perfect hardy accompaniment to a cold winter day. Note, this soup is the kind that is much better the next day, as the...
