Good Morning Kossacks and Welcome to Morning Open Thread (MOT).
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Doing one of these diaries is a good way to get your feet wet if you have been hesitant about writing a diary. You can write as much or as little as you want. The audience here is always supportive.
For some time, I have thought about doing a diary on comfort foods. I suppose everyone has his or her own definition of what constitutes a comfort food. And not surprisingly, Wikipedia has an entry on comfort foods with a list of various comfort foods from different countries and cultures. Generally, I think of comfort foods as those that are relatively simple but give us a great sense of well being and/or great comraderie when eating them with others. Several of my own favorites appear on the list in the Wikipedia article.
In my own house, three of my favorites involve long slow cooking, including one for which I have provided a recipe below. It is a wonder how we ever lived before the invention of the crock pot or electric slow cooker. When I researched the origin of the crock pot, I was shocked to find that this appliance has only been around for about 41 years. I do not remember how or when I got my first crock pot, but I noticed that the removable ceramic insert was introduced in 1974. That means that my original crock pot that I still use is a bonified antique because it does not have the removable insert. And it still works great!
Below is a recipe that I got from my mother many years ago. She got it from a friend and I suspect that it may have been one of those test kitchen recipes because it is so simple and yet incredibly delicious. My mother always cooked her version in the oven, but I do mine in the crock pot. Why not? It is such an easy way to cook one of my favorite comfort foods.
Father Corey's Stew (no one knows who Father Corey is, by the way)
2 lbs stew meat with fat cut off (or, a boneless chuck roast)
4 large carrots (I often use more because we love carrots)
1 medium onion
2 large stalks of celery
4 medium potatoes (I prefer baking potatoes)
1/2 cup cooking sherry
1 8oz can tomato sauce
1 can (6oz?) of Dawn Fresh mushroom steak sauce (can be found either with the canned mushrooms or in the sauces area of the grocery store)
Rough cut all vegetables into fairly large pieces. Then layer ingredients in crock pot in the following order, starting with the bottom. Meat, then pour sherry over meat. Add in order, carrots, onion, celery, and potatoes. Mix tomato sauce and Dawn Fresh mushroom steak sauce together in a bowl and pour over the top. Cover and cook at least four hours. I prefer to cook this six hours. Then serve with crusty bread and a salad.
And Fiddlegirl's wonderful diary yesterday had a link to Millionaire Shortbread which would make a wonderful dessert accompaniment to this perfectly comforting meal.
This is one of my favorite comfort foods. What are yours? And what else is on your mind this morning?