comfort food and not-quite enchiladas

[jlh]

In honor of my awesome Carla mood theme—first time ever using a custom mood theme!—I'm making a food post.

I really love enchiladas but when I make them at home I find it's too much tortilla, not enough filling, and rolling them is more work than they're worth. So instead I decided to make a kind of Mexican lasagna and it came out really well!

Flat Tofu-Spinach Enchiladas with Salsa Verde

12-oz pkg extra-firm tofu
10-oz pkg frozen chopped spinach, thawed
6 small corn tortillas
Tomatillo salsa
Shredded cheese

Slice tofu crosswise into 8 thin slabs, and use a weight to press the slabs between paper towels. Squeeze the excess moisture out of the spinach and set aside. Spread the bottom of a 7x11" or 8x8" glass pan with a bit of salsa, then lay down tortillas to cover—two should do it. Put down four of the tofu slabs, cover with half of the spinach and as much shredded cheese and salsa as you like. Repeat with another layer. Top with remaining tortillas and more cheese and salsa. Cover with cling or a dome and microwave for ten minutes on high until the cheese is melted and the salsa is bubbling. Serves 4.

I use Herdez salsa verde because it's already pretty smooth and not too spicy; I used two 7-oz cans to make my enchiladas, but I like them super saucy. If you get a chunkier salsa you might want to blitz it in the blender for a bit. I made it to my taste, but you can change it up pretty easily to make it to your taste by using different salsa, or flour tortillas, or another protein or vegetable—just be sure they're cooked.

Comfort food is always a little weird; to make it comforting you've adapted it in some way that makes it just a tiny bit embarrassing. They talked about this on Sex and the City—remember Carrie's ritual of eating saltines spread with grape jam, while standing in her kitchen reading the new Vogue?

Last night I really needed some comfort, so I reverted to an old standby. I got a stick of salami, cut a few rounds off, cut them into quarters, and nuked them for two minutes so they were totally fried and hard. Then I made some spaghetti and tossed in the salami chunks and some Prego, the jarred sauce of my adolescence. I also had some red leaf lettuce with red french dressing and croutons I made out of toast because I didn't feel like buying any croutons. Yum! And I had crunch berries for dessert—the cheapo kind that come in the bag.

What are your comfort foods?

Comments

[sisterpandora.livejournal.com]

We are so accidental twins! I'm about to upload and use a custom mood theme for the first time ever!

And I've been thinking about comfort foods this week. I don't eat them often anymore, if ever, but here's my list:

• Soup beans with fried potatoes and baked cornbread


• Roast, half pulled apart half cut, served over Egg Noodles


• Chicken and Dumplings (the kind that are rolled, sliced, then boiled in chicken broth)


• Green beans cooked with a dab of bacon grease


• Eggs, scrambled after they've had a moment to cook, served with crisp bacon, biscuits, and bacon gravy


• Fresh spinach with a simple oil, vinegar, and whatever spices sound good at the moment dressing


• Deviled Eggs (sometimes)


• Granma's peach cobbler


• Granma's fried apple pies

Funny thing about all those are, every single one comes from my Granma's kitchen. Nothing from my own home despite my mom and dad cooking all the time while I was growing up.

[kay-taylor.livejournal.com]

That sounds delicious! I'll have to try it next time I'm not cooking for Boy, though, as he has a nuclear aversion to melted cheese.

My comfort stand-bys:
- mushroom risotto, as this is the first thing my father ever taught me how to cook
- daal
- noodles with tomato and spring onion sauce
- tagliatelle with garlic cream cheese, spinach and soy sauce (yes, for real)
- apple and dried apricot crumble
- spaghetti with garlic and chillies
- spaghetti with lentil bolognese (or TVP bolognese).

[adjudicated.livejournal.com]

I love salami in spaghetti sauce! I have a favorite salami, too, that I get at a local market here - it doesn't even have a brand name. My jarred sauce of choice, from my childhood, is regular Ragu, with browned ground beef and a ton of fresh mushrooms simmered into the sauce. I recently started making a really complex meat-based Italian sauce for ziti, spaghetti, etc, and it's really good, but sometimes I love a good bowl of Ragu and pasta :D

Food is not a comfort to me anymore in the same way it was before. This is for two reasons. 1) I cannot physically eat the amount of food that I perceive as being comforting and 2) certain foods make me feel really ooky. Reeeeeeeeeeallly ooky :/ It's been interesting, and frustrating/angering, adjusting to not being able to comfort eat in the same way as I always have. Sure, the weight loss is a good thing. But I miss being able to just throw down at the table sometimes.

So, now, my comfort foods are:

- really crisp, fresh celery with Rondele
- Wheat Thins (Reduced Fat)
- nachoes - the ghetto kind with fake cheese and jalepenos
- guacamole
- chef salad
- really good roasted vegetables
- really good bread with butter and a slice of ham

[stinaleigh.livejournal.com]

This sounds like something that my brother and his girlfriend would like. May I send it to them?

Oh and my comfort foods are macaroni and cheese or really any kind of pasta and cheese. Kilbasa, cornbread, and wild rice cheese soup.

[evil-erato.livejournal.com]

My comfort food vary from day to day. Right now it is egg sandwiches on potato bread with lots of cheese. Other days it is my fakeitas, fajitas with pre-cooked chicken slices, onions, peppers & salsa verde. On very bad days it is mac&cheese the old fashioned way, with lots of creamy cheese and baked into a casserole with buttered breadcrumbs toasted on top.

Right this second my comfort food is actually a beverage - an appallingly low-class glass of white merlot on ice. :)) I have cajun bean soup thawing in the microwave for dinner, and I think that is an appropriately bizzare combo for my mood.

[aethelflaed2.livejournal.com]

Frozen Ring Dings or Devil Dogs (when you see them in the freezer, beware, it's been a baaaad day.)

in lieu of RD or DD, Enteman's chocolate donuts.

a Huge bowl of pasta & broccoli with lots of garlic, olive oil, parmesan

guacamole

chili

chicken soup

[shewalksonroses.livejournal.com]

Mac & cheese, definitely. Or, when I can't be arsed to make a white sauce, any sort of pasta shapes with lots of grated cheddar melted into them. Bread and butter, oyster crackers, rice with butter, jacket potatoes, any sort of carb with butter, really! :P

[americonedream.livejournal.com]

My comfort food is macaroni and cheese, or mashed potato. Yum!

Hope you're doing okay, am thinking of you ♥

[lillijulianne.livejournal.com]

i have way too many comfort foods. hmm.

my half-sicilian father made his own sauce, still does, and it's amazing, but as a small child i preferred ragu, especially when my mother would put canned mushrooms and leftover chicken in it and serve it on buitoni wagon wheels. i have not tried this recently, but you reminded me! they don't even MAKE buitoni wagon wheels anymore.

and instead of real cheese i would beg for one of the packets from kraft dinner to sprinkle over it. which leads me to kraft dinner. my mother would make it for her and my lunch after we went swimming at the ywca, which was old and had a subterranean pool all tiled with- this was the magical part- a sloping hallway from the locker room with water running along the floor, to bathe one's feet, i guess, but to me it was like some kind of dream thing. the smell of chlorine makes me happy, and so does kraft dinner. i'll never forget coming across a bit about it in one of jane & michael stern's books- they make it my weird way. cook it al dente, cut back on the milk, add more butter, and steal an extra cheese packet.

and it is now easter, which means russell stover cream eggs. vanilla, strawberry, and the almighty maple.