This is perhaps the epitome of comfort food for me : Kasespätzle! I guess you could consider it Southern German “Mac & Cheese”, except with homemade pasta, Swiss cheese instead of cheddar and onions. It’s the first and last thing that I eat when I go home to Germany, and while I don’t make it all that often at home (mainly because the carbs and cheese add up to lots of calories!), it is the thing that I crave when I need a foodie “hug”. It’s delicious, it’s comforting and it instantly puts a smile on my face.
Hasselback potatoes are definitely comfort food to me! Long time followers of this page will know that I am very proud of this style of potato: back in 2015, I even won a contest with this recipe put on by the Idaho Potato Commission and if it’s one thing that Idaho knows, it’s potatoes. 🙂 These take a bit of time (usually right around an hour, although if you have larger potatoes, they can take a little longer), and they take a little bit of precision to make, but I think that they are worth it. My trick for not cutting all the way through the potato is to put a chop stick on either side o the potato so I don’t slice all the way down to the cutting board. If you aren’t a fan of garlic, you can omit it, though I do think the fresh herbs are nice in the basting butter.
Sometimes you just want a bowl of soup, and seeing I just made a roast chicken on Saturday (see previous post), I decided to use some of that chicken for this soup. If you are into making your own chicken stock, this would be an excellent time to use it, though to be honest, I cheated by using low-sodium chicken broth from the shops. If you are going with the “from the store” variety, make sure you get low or no sodium broth — always easier to add on your own than have too salty soup. Hearty and nourishing on this first day of February.
Seeing I was stuck at home all day, I decided to make some winter comfort food… I’d never roast a chicken in the summer (that is what Whole Food Rotisserie is for!) but today I was at home and was in the mood so… Voila! The roasted bird with schmaltzy veggies (and by that, I mean the “covered in chicken fat” meaning of schmaltzy, not the “overly sentimental” definition). Delicious. Plenty of leftovers for the next days as well.