4 Faves: Comfort Food for a Fall Day

These are favorites of mine.

Hawaiian French Toast:
Recipe should be printed on the bread bag. If not, you need:
-a loaf of King's Hawaiian bread (It's round and can be found at most grocery stores in the bread aisle)
-some eggs, vanilla extract, milk, and cinnamon. (I figure 1 egg per slice and most people want at least 2 slices!!!)

Mix 1/2 cap (NOT cup, CAP!) of vanilla into a mixture of egg/milk batter the way you normally make it. Add a couple shakes of cinnamon. Quickly deep each piece of bread into batter and then into frying pan. Cook on MED-LOW till golden on one side, flip it over, and "golden up" the other side. Serve with the best maple syrup you can afford. Allan Connell told me on vacation when I made this, "It's the best French toast I've ever had in my life." Coming from a family of gourmets, that was quite the compliment, considering the "secret" is the King's Hawaiian bread.

Mama Zo's Mac 'n Cheese

1 box San Giorgio medium sized seashells
gnerous 1/2 pound of yellow American or NY Sharp cheddar cheese from deli
8 oz sour cream --
up to a half cup of milk (depends what consistency you like)
1 cup seasoned break crumbs (if you decide to bake this)
salt and pepper to taste

(Read thru all directions first. If you decide you want to use the baking step, preheat oven to 350. Then proceed from this point. )

Boil the shells in one pot while melting the cheese with sour cream in a pan. Add milk to nearly-melted cheese mixture and stir constantly till smooth. Remove it from heat. Drain the shells, pour the cheese mixture plus salt and pepper over them, stir it all up, then pour it into a 13x9 baking dish. Top with bread crumbs and bake for about 20 minutes. You can skip the baking part if you want. I love it both ways, kids like it unbaked, hubby prefers the crisp bread crumb topping. Totally tasty, totally not on any diet. Just good ole southern comfort food. The secret ingredient is sour cream.
PS Kids who are used to the very-orange color of boxed mac 'n cheese may not want to try this if it looks more white or yellow than orange. Give them one spoonful of it when it's cooled a bit, and I bet they'll want it this way every time.





Beef Burgundy in a Crock Pot* (altered from an Alpha recipe)

-a 3-4 pound rump roast, cut into bite size cubes (ask your butcher to do this while you shop; it saves you a lot of time and it's free)
-1/4 cup burgundy wine or cooking sherry
-2 cans Campbell's Golden Mushroom soup
-1 can water (rinse soup can with water and retain)
-1 onion, diced
- 8 or 12 oz sliced fresh mushrooms if you like a lot of mushroom
- baby carrots (optional) I use my hand to measure 6 servings

Sear the meat in a pan with onions and wine. Drain the meat. (It will lose the grease but retain plenty of wine flavor. ) Put it all into a 5 or 6-qt crock pot. Add soups, water and carrots. Cover and cook on HIGH for 4 hours, then LOW for 2-3 more. Serve over mashed potatoes with side salad, applesauce and fresh rolls.

*In place of crock pot, you can put it in a large stew pot and bake on 200 in the oven for 7-8 hrs. You may substitute regular condensed cream of mushroom soup in a pinch. It's not as rich looking, but tastes good.



Angel Food Trifle with Strawberries (or Blueberries) and Yogurt

-1 large storebought angel food cake
-1 pint strawberries, half of them sliced, half left whole to garnish top
-2 cups strawberry yogurt
-1 cup part skim ricotta cheese

Cut up cake into bite size cubes . Blend yogurt and ricotta w/ blender or mixer till smooth. Put half the cake cubes on the bottom of the dish, pour 1/2 the mixture over, then sliced strawbs, rest of cake cubes, rest of mixture, and finally decorate the top with remaining strawberries. You may easily substitue blueberries. This recipe takes not more than 10 minutes to put together, and should be eaten close to being made or else it will get soggy. (I like soggy, but it doens't present very well!) In a clear glass trifle dish or large salad bowl, this is very pretty.

Danielle tagged me for this. You may tag yourself after reading this.
The idea is to post 4 recipes you like in any category. My category is, I guess, "comfort food all day." :)