I would gladly find great comfort in every single thing on that list except chicken and mushroom soup. Generally speaking, my morning buttered toast, coffee and orange juice is very comforting to me

Interesting list, but I haven't had corned beef and cabbage for a couple of years now. There sure is a lot of grilled cheese on that list. I realize it's a list of most searched, so maybe that's why it seems skewed.

Baked mac & cheese with buttered cracker crumbs on top. Made with evaporated milk, gouda and parmesan cheese. I didn't even see it on that list.

Thick sliced homemade honey wheat bread with egg salad.

And butter/olive oil, herb & sesame cracker bread that I'm still making for night time snacks.

Mmm - almost forgot about homemade flaky biscuits - remembering the discussion about that.

mashed potatoes according to my muffin top

Since you allow us to go off-list I choose Tillamook ice cream. A comforting revelation. I like it more than talenti gelato. Chocolate peanut butter is the flavor that carried me thru many netflix evenings.

Do I really have to choose one of those? I guess I've eaten more fried chicken (or barbecued chicken, or Cuban chicken, etc.) because sometimes I just need chicken in the fridge and don't have a chicken or don't have time to do something different with one, and we've found a couple of places this past year that have good fried chicken.

I think there may be some self-fulfilling here. Fried chicken is more of an art, but a lot of things on the list take minimal cooking skill. Add that to a lot of restaurants have been abandoning their usual menus for take out, and are selling pizza, pasta, sandwiches and chicken....

But what I've really been indulging in are some factory made things I'd usually eschew, like Best Foods mayonnaise and M&M's. And organic chard. And pasture eggs and organic cream and organic broccoli and organic tangerines and organic bananas and organic blueberries and organic romanesco and organic onions and organic garlic and organic sweet potatoes and organic squash and organic limequats and organic jujubes and organic collards and organic cabbage and organic celeriac and organic fennel and organic finger limes and organic bok choy and organic arugula and organic rainbow carrots and .... Because that's where I've really been indulging myself. All the beautiful produce!

You don't have to choose from that list, but I was curious as to which items on that list people here preferred, if at all. I did not find it a bad list, especially since it did not contain mac & cheese, which I will not eat - unless I make it myself, which is Italian style and without elbow macaroni. I've had a strong aversion to mac & cheese since I was a child, and my sister loved it. One of the reasons I would want to cook dinner as a child was to prevent my sister from making mac & cheese.

I like chicken and mushroom soup, and I made some this week, using chicken stock that I made and some dried porcini mushrooms. I added egg and lemon juice to it, and so it was really an avgolemono soup, but it had chicken and mushrooms - plus some wide egg noodles.

I did not make biscuits last year, except maybe once or twice, but I do like them, and I have the ingredients for them, but I always use powdered milk.

I think this list was compiled from searches people did possibly for finding out how to make some of these dishes (or where to order take-out), but I cannot imagine that that many people would not know how to make grilled cheese sandwiches.

Tillamook ice cream! Yes coffee almond fudge oh my gosh I love that stuff

I am appalled at the scarcity of chocolate on the list.....

I rarely eat it because it is nothing but more padding but I can definitely find comfort in a bowl of warm, fluffy stove stove stuffing. With extra buttah.

Also, where's the Mac and cheese?

Of what's on that list, I'd put chicken noodle soup at the top for my comfort foods. And - sorry to those that will cringe at the thought - it has to be canned chicken noodle soup! As good as home made is, it's just not the same effect produced :-)

Otherwise, chili and pot roast rate high. And meat loaf and grilled cheese. But those tend to be rather common menu items in my life and I don't especially consider them just comfort foods.

Roast chicken would be another comfort food, if for nothing more than it being a family Sunday dinner tradition so always associated with happy memories.

btw, none of these has played a significant role in getting me through 2020 anymore so than they have any other year. But the comfort food that comes from fermented grapes has played a pretty significant role.......and is continuing that function very well so far for 2021 :-)

Cookies.

lasagna, meatloaf, pulled pork sandwiches, spaghetti and home made bread drizzled with honey ...

Hmmm. I don't think I've eaten any differently because of the pandemic than I did before. We're eating more eggs because I have chickens and the B&B across the street used to buy 12 dozen a week. Now I have extra eggs even though I've had several other people buy eggs now that I have them available.

My comfort food would be mashed potatoes, although I seldom make them or eat them, Elery won't touch them and I don't make them for myself.

Annie

I love mashed potatoes and gravy - and shepherd's pie - and even like potato turbate, but mashed potatoes are so much work, I almost never make them, and packaged just doesn't taste as good as fresh, though I grew up on those boxed flakes.

I love lamb. I do miss browsing store aisles and seeing what looks good or is on sale. My choices have definitely narrowed with online shopping.

The only things from the list that I made were monkey bread for my son’s birthday and mashed potatoes for Christmas. But once each doesn’t qualify as having gotten me through the year. That honor would best go to pizza, which I made more this year than in the rest of my life combined. Varying levels of success between very good and pretty bad, and no pattern or consistency despite initial efforts to document each trial.

DC - Details on the ribs if you don’t mind. Time/temp of the SV?

I never have been a big lover of Lasagna until I came across the recipe for Lasagna casserole. I make a pan of that; cut it into squares; freeze those solid; and then seal each in FoodSaver packages for future reference.

That and salads. If I don't have a salad everyday my body feels neglected.

Also, I have rediscovered a favorite childhood comfort food: Cream of Wheat. I like to make a bowl of that in late evening.

Bread.....I made lots and gave it away 5 days a week for 7 months then just hit a wall and am only making bread for myself now...but I eat toast and coffee every morning and sometimes bread and cheese for dinner.
And soups....made a lot of soup...gallons! vegetable beef, chicken vegetable, various beans, wild rice, mushroom, cabbage etc etc....with bread of course!
And strangely, i have lost 10 pounds.

What surprised me on that list was meatloaf chosen for WV. I love meatloaf myself but have never felt it a particularly popular food here.

Maybe that's why people were searching for recipes, laceyvail?

Lars - I live in Missouri and have never had Baked Potato soup either.

From the list I've probably had biscuits and gravy the most in the last year. I'll make a big batch of sausage gravy and biscuits on the weekend and warm it up for breakfast the following week. I also often make skinny bagel breakfast sandwiches with bacon, egg, and cheese.

For dinner we eat a lot of pizza since we bought the Ooni pizza oven a few months ago. We also eat a surf and turf dinner almost every weekend. A steak from our own grass fed beef and either shrimp kabobs, seared scallops, or crab cakes.

I miss fried chicken the most. We rarely make it ourselves but instead buy Popeyes and with WFH and living in the sticks about 30 miles from the nearest one it's not happening unless I have another reason to go into the city during their open hours.

FOAS,

First, it is not easy to find lamb breast ribs in stores. If you find it, make sure you know it is more than enough for two. This is what I have done:

1. Lots of fat. Remove some and marinate for 24 hours.

2. Any sous vide longer than a day, I sanitize everything. Boil the bag with the seasoning in the bag, and blow torch the meat.

3. Set bath at 133F and sous vide for 48 hours, the last two hours at 144F.

4. get charcoal grill going red hot.

5. Remove lamb from bag,dry all surfaces, and coat with thick BBQ sauce.

6. It will take about 5 minutes each side of lamb to grill.

Of course, before you plan anything, do check weather report to make sure that the weather is OK on the day of the grilling (outdoors).

With the fire pit going, while enjoying smoking BBQ lamb in my greenhouse is my definition of comfort food. You tell me your definition of comfort food! Ha!

dcarch

FWIW, last time I checked, Walmart here had lamb breast, but I passed on it because I remembered how fatty it can be and thought I might wind up having to eat it all by myself.

I have a recipe I've used before for slow cooking ribs in the oven, on a rack in a Dutch oven or covered pot, on low heat for hours. Meat came out extremely tender, but I didn't use enough seasoning, so it was too bland.

I started making biscuits again this past year. Growing up ,Mother made hot biscuits for every meal.

Thanks for the details, dcarch. And your comments, Carol.

i was going to ask about portion size, I’m surprised at how little weight recipes seem to be calling a serving, but that might be due to high fat content? The butcher here is selling packages of three racks, total weight 5 pounds. Would one package be enough for three big plus one small eater? Or should I double up to be safe? $9/lb so cost does become an issue.

Sorry Lars, if I have more questions I’ll start a separate thread.

Corn cakes. Oregon? Not a particularly PNW menu item. What may have driven the searches is that there appear to be a number of restaurants here that served them. With the closures people must have wanted to try and make them at home. The reviews seem to indicate that they were popular with the vegan crowd.

Personally, like gardengal, I found fermented grape juice comforting-otherwise we ate as we normally do.

The main difference I noticed in the food that I made last year was that I made a lot more pizzas than usual - mainly because we got an Ooni pizza oven, which made it a lot more fun. And I liked the results and how quick it was.

I also baked a lot more bread than usual - mainly to avoid having to go to the store. Otherwise, our eating habits did not change that much. We never ate in restaurants that much anyway.

Annie--I think Elery is the only man I have ever heard of who doesn't like mashed potatoes!!

Bread, all kinds! The doc wanted me to be tested for Celiac disease. So, she said eat bread, lots. Well, who can pass that up? ;^) 12 pounds and 4 months later I'm allergic to wheat, barley and malt :^( Back to no bread, if nothing else, for my waistline!

Oh no, Mrsjack, Elery LOVES mashed potatoes. However, he says they have "too many carbs" and won't eat them. In fact, he seldom eats any potatoes, much to my consternation because I love 'em pretty much any way they can be made.

Annie

I always find these type of lists fun, fascinating, head-scratching. How they are decided. The LED lighting company that put it together....can't figure out how they came up with the list. Went down the rabbit hole that is 'google trends' for 2020.

Tried various key words but 'recipe' gave the best results. I did global, then the US, then by state, county, city, even by week throughout the year. I went to France, the UK, Ireland, Greece, Italy.

Must be a 'key word' I'm missing. Did not see corn cakes, grilled cheese, or fried chicken anywhere.

-Global on the left, US on the right. Would be interesting to compare 2019 and 2020. Doubt we would see as much bread/sourdough.

We did not change much but did try something new at least once a week. 52 weeks in a year so that was fun. Twice a week at least, a grain/bean or noodle veg bowl. Went through 4 pounds of white miso and gallons of bone/veg broth. Lots of eggs. Seafood, lamb.

The ultimate comfort would be the great American burger, and a Salmon, Avocado BLT. Proscuitto bacon. DH would add merquez lamb sausage to the ultimate comfort. Having that tonight in a roasted halved spaghetti squash.

New 2020 comforts would be salmon cakes. Now at least once a month. And shrimp-n-grits.

If I had to pick just one....three farm eggs, cracked whole, low heat, slow stir so the eggs do not scramble, variegated. Dill and a bit of fluffy parm/romano.

DH would say anchovy's, garlic, parm/romano over egg pasta, wide noodles.

Comfort together?...the burger. And the BLT....and scrapple, 😂 But we can't get that here.

The lighting LED people's conclusion, "...What else makes comfort food even better? When you’re eating it under led lighting that’s designed to make everything under them look better. Our products are designed to deliver superb color quality and complete controllability so not only does your comfort food taste good, it looks good too....

We haven't changed our eating very much, but we have been enjoying some foods made in the air fryer.

Crispy burritos, "fried" chicken, eggrolls to name a few.

On that list (Lars's), I'd say mashed potatoes and meatloaf, preferably in the same meal! Off that list I downed about15 lbs worth of Ben& Jerry's ans Sanders milk chocolate salted caramels. 2021 will be the year of the diet (again!), but maybe starting with Chinese New Years......