Around the Kitchen Table: COMFORT FOOD CLASSICS + 7-Book #Giveaway!

CLEO COYLE: There are foods that we eat, and foods that feed our souls. Comfort food classics are the dishes that calm rough days, bring sighs of satisfaction, or maybe take us back to familiar family tables with every bite. What are your top three favorite comfort foods: savory or sweet? Mac and cheese, fried chicken, and mashed potatoes are at the top of the list for my husband Marc. As for me, a bowl of pasta or slice of lasagna brings me back to my Italian family’s table. And a hunk of blueberry pie or a fresh doughnut with coffee always makes me smile.

When I'm craving that old-fashioned cinnamon-sugar doughnut taste, I often bake up these Coffee Shop Doughnut Muffins ☕ and (yes) they pair wonderfully with a hot cuppa joe...

Click here to get Cleo's recipe for 
Coffee Shop Doughnut Muffins 
with a free, downloadable PDF. 

What about all of you? What are your three favorite comfort foods: savory or sweet? And if you have any recipes to share, please do!

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MADDIE DAY: True comfort foods for me are always starchy. Polenta with a spicy West African sauce. Cheesy grits. Warm bread slathered thickly with butter. Baked potatoes. Pasta with a creamy coating. Something soothing that sticks with you and goes down easy.

Mystery Playground hosted my Cheesy Grits recipe to celebrate When the Grits Hit the Fan back in 2017.

Certain of my mother's sweet baked concoctions also bring great comfort and solace. Other than the Christmas cookies I bake each holiday season, I also love her poppyseed cake, which I shared here as Marilyn's Poppyseed Cake.

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KIM DAVIS: I've found that just spending time in the kitchen, mixing and baking, provides some comfort all on it's own. Making bread is at the top of my comfort food list. From the anticipation of waiting for the dough to rise, the yeasty aroma as it bakes, and then slathering the hot-out-of-the-oven bread with creamy butter... swoon-worthy! I frequently make this No-Knead Rustic Bread. 

Mac and Cheese is another one of my favorite comfort foods. However, the calories (and cholesterol) contained in a typical serving of the dish undoes the level of comfort it should bring. I found a recipe for mac and cheese that uses cauliflower as the base, did several tweaks to suit my needs, and found out I liked it every bit as much as the typical dish. I call it Sneaky Mac and Cheese because it's a good way to serve some extra veggies without most people suspecting.  

And to satisfy my sweet tooth when comfort is needed, gooey chocolate-y brownies, warm from the oven, is what I call perfection! 

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PEG COCHRAN/MARGARET LOUDON: For me, comfort food is usually something simple that warms you inside and out.  A favorite is a bowl of pasta Bolognese, which reminds me of my grandmother.  Actually, pasta with any kind of sauce always makes me feel good.  Another favorite comfort food is a simple roast chicken--especially if accompanied by mashed potatoes.  Finally, I'd have to say shepherd's pie always feels comforting.  It's something I can make from memory and contains one of my other favorite comfort foods--mashed potatoes.  

 

 

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VICKI DELANY: Looks like some of my favourites have already been mentioned. As they say about literature: classics are classic for a reason. However, tastes do change. I used to go straight to Kraft Dinner (what Americans call mac and cheese), the stuff in a package with strangely coloured powdered cheese. I had that again a number of years ago for the first time in a long time when I needed a comfortable, reliable staple - I couldn't stand it. Spaghetti Bolognaise is high on the list as is a great big bowl of hearty soup, something like my butternut squash and sweet potato soup.  For snacking when you need a good hug, nothing beats a traditional English scone (no flavouring, no icing, just sconey goodness). The type to be served with jam and clotted cream. (Or clotted cream and jam as per your preference.) Here's my normal recipe which just happens to be the version Lily bakes in her Tea by the Sea Tearoom.  

Mystery Lovers' Kitchen: Not Another Scone Recipe!

Traditional Afternoon Tea Scones from Vicki Delany

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LESLIE KARST: Having grown up in Los Angeles in the '60s and '70s, my comfort food is definitely Mexican cuisine. My mom would often make tacos dorados (fried so that the tortillas are crispy and golden brown) when we were kids, and later in life I learned to cook lots of other dishes. Some of my favs are calabacitas (which means "little squash"), a stew with pork, zucchini, and corn, best eaten by scooping it up with a soft, warm flour tortilla:

 

 

And I also adore this simple Mexican plate dinner:

 

¡Que sabroso!  

MADDIE DAY: Leslie, thanks for the reminder! As someone who also grew up in southern California, Mexican food is also total comfort food for me, especially a warm steamed tamale, although I've never made them. A simple quesadilla is often a lunch or solo dinner for me and I've shared several quesadilla recipes here.

 

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VMBURNS:  Comfort food feeds the soul and reminds me of home. The one food that does that for me are fried pork chops. I LOVE fried pork chops. My mom made great pork chops. She didn't enjoy cooking, although she was a great cook. I suspect her aversion to cooking had something to do with the fact that she worked in the cafeteria at my elementary school. By the time she got home from work, the last thing she wanted to do was prepare another meal. She preferred to eat at restaurants and have others serve her, instead of being the server. Needless to say, we ate out a lot. The exception was on Sundays. My mom cooked almost every Sunday. In fact, she'd often start cooking on Saturday night or early Sunday morning, so dinner would be ready by the time we got home from church. One of my favorite Sunday meals was fried pork chops. Just eating them reminds me of home. 

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MOLLY MACRAE: My mom’s mashed potatoes were nothing special yet oh so special. They always had a few lumps, which we loved. She mashed them using a fork, adding oleo (we didn't call it margarine), milk, salt and pepper. I can’t remember the last time I made them myself, probably some distant Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner. 

My sister Jenny’s Fläskpannkaka (oven pancake) hits the comfort spot, too. Warm syrup poured over it is just right for a winter night supper. In summer? Cover it in berries!

ChickpeaNoodle Soup is a vegetarian alternative for that comfort food classic - Chicken Noodle Soup. 

And what about a good old grilled cheese sandwich? I can feel its hug right now.

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ANG POMPANO: The foods I think of as comfort food are the ones we ate often when we were first married. Tuna noodle casserole, which we actually had again tonight, was on regular rotation when we were just starting out. Teachers are paid once a month, so by the end of it we were counting every penny twice. That’s when meatloaf with mashed potatoes showed up, something hearty and filling that carried us through. My third comfort food goes back even further, to my childhood, when an aunt would take me out to lunch every Saturday. I almost always ordered tomato soup with a grilled cheese sandwich (I'm with you Molly), potato chips, and a milkshake. It’s still my go-to Saturday lunch, although I skip the milkshake now.

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LESLIE BUDEWITZ: In Death al Dente, my first Food Lovers' Village mystery, my girl Erin Murphy -- who is half Italian, as you can tell by her name -- muses about her discovery when she left home that while comfort food to her was anything her mother made involving pasta and tomatoes, to many others, tomatoes were spicy and comfort food tended toward the soft, smooth, and creamy. Mac and cheese, custard, grilled cheese, bread pudding. (I'd include an excerpt, but I'm traveling this week without access to my files.) 

Our favorite mac and cheese recipe comes from The French Country Table by Laura Washburn, and it doesn't look like I've ever shared it here. But Fettucine Alfredo -- what my father called fancy mac and cheese when I, in my first apartment out of law school, made it for my visiting parents -- is a wonderfully grown-up version. 

When I asked Mr. Right about comfort food, he mentioned several favorites, including chocolate chip cookies, and vanilla ice cream with our Chocolate Cabernet Sauce. As we talked on, some of the same themes emerged as others have mentioned -- the foods our mothers served when we were sick (custard), recipes associated with grandmothers and other favorite people, and traditional family favorites (Christmas cookies come to mind). Dishes that call up memories, warm us physically and emotionally, and connect us with the people we love. Food with a story. 

Here's wishing you all the comfort and joy your heart -- and tummy -- desire. 

Readers, how about you?

What about you? What are your three favorite comfort foods: savory or sweet? Comment below to be entered in this month's giveaway! 

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A Poisonous Pour by Maddie Day

Bulletproof Barista by Cleo Coyle 

All Shell Breaks Loose (ARC)
by Molly MacRae

Essentials of Murder by Kim Davis

Shot Through the Book by Eva Gates

A Clue in the Crumbs by Lucy Burdette

Diet of Death by Ang Pompano

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May 8

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