It doesn’t get very cold too often where I live, but it does get a bit chilly. One of my favorite meals to make is a bowl with rice on the bottom, covered in baked beans, and sliced kiolbassa sausage on top. Cheap to make, but so delicious and comforting. Also my dad’s homemade chicken soup, which I’ve had to learn to make on my own since I moved away. Of course I can’t leave out egg noodles in homemade pork gravy with smoked pork tenderloin. Mmm my mouth is watering and my stomach grumbling just thinking about all this.
I’ve never liked meatloaf, but that’s more to do with my aversion to ground beef (I dislike the texture).
I do that with the garlic (and sprigs of rosemary) for legs of lamb too. With shoulders I seldom bother: I just put everything in the tin, cover it and see what happens. Shoulder is my usual choice for lamb, but I hear what you’re saying about availability. Presumably you’re not UK based then? Seems that lamb’s always available here. And living in rural North Yorkshire, it’s hard to leave the house without happening across something woolly and bleating…
We just polished off a big pot of my chicken/black bean chili. It was particularly tasty this time around. Perhaps because instead of chopping the onion and peppers by hand, I cut corners and put them all in the food processor, basically creating a sofrito not unlike that made for a paella. For peppers I just used a red bell pepper that I had purchased for something else not made, a few jalapenos and a nice poblano. Whatever the case, it was really good. Buttered hot tortillas on the side.
Not surprisingly one of my “comfort” foods is some of that “crap in a can” stuff I got feed as kid when Mom was too busy/tired. And or that’s what I WANTED because I had kid taste buds and actually liked “crap in a can”.
Which reminds me a thing my ex did.
She always talked about me eating my comfort food whenever I ate it. It’s comfort food when you are eating it because it’s bad weather or you are down in the dumps or you are yearning for the days of yore. It is NOT comfort food when you just happen to want some or can’t decide what else to eat…
Yeah, we just finished up a big pot of beef chili ourselves. Decided to go more Midwestern kitchen sink style vs Texas red. I had just picked up some lovely looking red Santa Cruz brand chili powder that I picked up in Phoenix when I was out there. (This was just powdered chiles with a bit of salt in it, no cumin) to which I just rolled my own and added powdered guajillos, gochugaru (Korean red pepper flakes/powder–somewhere in between), Hungarian paprika, Gerbhart’s chili powder, cumin, oregano, garlic powder, onion powder, black pepper. For rest, ground beef, diced can of tomatoes, onions, garlic, yellow and orange bell pepper, pinto and cannellini beans, chicken broth, a stock cube or so, and some nuked corn and elbow macaroni on the side, which was mixed in to the chili at the table. Came out surprisingly delicious. Whatever kind of peppers are in that Santa Cruz powder are great. I assume they’re just something like red New Mexico chiles. (It’s the second item on this page. Yes, I bought the “mild,” as apparently “hot” is only available on special order, and I was using it as a base chile to build the rest of the chile powder on top of, but for a “mild” pepper, it packed a good bit of a punch. Certainly spicier than stuff like anchos, which is my usual base if I’m rolling my own.)
It’s very much the opposite of how I normally make chili (hand cut beef, no beans, no tomatoes), but this was a delicious change of pace.