Cakes Comfort Food

Anyone who says they don't have at least one cherished comfort food is lying. I am sure that it is human nature to have at least one food that warms you right down to the bottom of your feet on the coldest, saddest, dreariest day. It's the first food you crave after several days of lying in bed with the flu when food was the last thing on your mind. Rather trying not to throw violently up and the mere thought of food was more the prevailing paradigm. It might even be that one food that you instinctively want to hoe into when you're spending a Saturday with your head buried under the covers and nursing a broken heart that some thoughtless bloke has trod all bloody over and all your girlfriends are delivering the same time-honoured platitudes like "He was never good enough for you." and "He'll wake up one day and realize how good he had it." and "there are loads better guys out there just waiting..." Okay. Maybe the ice cream straight from the carton comes first in those circumstances. But the true comfort food comes in a close second there!

Comfort food is not something that needs to be all gussied up, or even benefits from it really. I mean, if you try to get too fancy and "nouveau food" with, for example, homemade macaroni & cheese (my personal weakness) it ends up not resembling the thing you loved to begin with...kind of like a spouse with a severe mid life crisis.  Better just to stick to the basics - white sauce, loads of cheese, perfectly done elbow macaroni and maybe, just maybe, a bit of breadcrumb and butter on the top to make a crunchy topping if you can stand the suspense long enough to bake it in the oven. Personally, I'd rather eat mine with an enormous soup spoon straight from the pot at the first available opportunity.

I know exactly what Cakes would choose as his comfort food without having ever discussed it. Hardly remarkable, I know, given that I'm married to him. But I have to take pride in whatever small accomplishments I can claim, as they as so few and far between.

Cakes would, undoubtedly, undeniably choose Apple Crumble. Complete with capital letters.

Cakes loves apple crumble so much that we have developed a system in our house for the quick and easy assembly of same whenever the mood strikes. We keep, in our cupboard, along with all the other cannisters of staple ingredients (flour, rice, sugar, tea...) a huge cannister of crumble topping made of a mixture of almond meal, sliced almonds, crushed walnuts, sunflower seeds, oats, oat flour, whole wheat flour, brown sugar and cinnamon. When the moods strikes, you simply melt a little butter (okay, a lot) and stir through some crumble topping mix until it's all quite buttery and clumpy ( I use about a half cup melted butter for 1.5 to 2 cups dry crumble mix- enough so that all the crumble topping is moist with butter). Slice a few apples into the bottom of a casserole pan, shake over some cinnammon, a tablespoon or two of flour, a bit of sugar and a few little cubes of butter. You top it with the topping and pop it in the 350F oven for 45 minutes. Voila - less than 5 minutes of prep time, and you've got yourself a kickass crumble.

The Famous Crumble Topping Jar!

I'm on to the comfort food and apple crumble thing today because Cakes is not feeling very well. He woke up with a horrible headache this morning (since been upgraded to a category 3 tummy ache). He was feeling a bit sorry for himself (that pesky Y-chromasome I'm sure), so, while he went back to sleep, I dashed together a crumble (pesky X-chromasone). Matty and Fitzy were clearly quite concerned about Cakes' wellbeing and accompanied me to the kitchen to prepare Cakes' crumble, where they were very helpful in the critical crumble-making tasks of:

Watching mum cut up apples

Crawling on the chopping board

Licking the butter to make sure it's still okay

Testing the crumble topping to make sure mum got it right

Comments

[Chantelle]

Lyn, I can't believe how big the kittens have gotten. I remember the day you got them. Although my favourite comfort food used to be cream of potatoe soup, I think I've moved to the mac and cheese. I won't deny the occasional ice-cream-straight-out-of-carton either. Oooh, and I really liked the look of the spinach pasta dish. I think even I could manage that! Best wishes to Cakes, hope he feels better soon.

[Meena]

I totally agree with you. Anything creamy, melt in your mouth and totally decadent HAS to be comfort food! :o)

[Heath]

What proportions of stuff do you use for the crumble mixture? I'd love to keep a jar of that made up for small comfort-necessitating emergencies!

[Lyn]

Heath,

The proportions are very fluid. I did a similar crumble topping last year & I wrote out all the topping ingredients. You can find it here. http://gorgeoustown.typepad.com/lex_culinaria/2005/01/ab_fab_mixed_be.html

[anthony]

My comfort food usually comes in a bottle although making pizza dough did do wonders for my stress levels.