It's cold and frosty - winter comfort food needed.

[Tinker]

Well, it's the time for broths and stews etc. Who has a fab recipe for warming comfort food. Did this last night:

Brown big fat sausages in a pan
Chop red oinion in 8ths and soften and brown in pan.
Do same with an apple or two

Bung into pot for cooking with some stock and some cider, add thyme, bayleaf, dollop of Dijon mustard and dollop of cranberry sauce. Cook slowly on top of cooker and serve with mash or whatever you like

Delicious

(Stole that recipe from somewhere else)

Tonight we are having my favourite comfort food:

4 big garlicky Italian sausages, split, crumbled and fried with a pinch of chilli (only a teensy weensy bit as I am bf, but usually a nice big fat wad). Add a small glass of white wine and stir all the crusty bits in and cook for a few mins. Then stir in a big dollop of dijon mustard, add a generous slug of double cream and cook for 5 mins or so. Finish off with a big, big handful of basil leaves and toss with penne.

Yum. Add a glass of red wine, a log fire, Footballers Wives followed by Sex and the City, a 3 year old and a 11 week old fast asleep upstairs and its Enid heaven.

Ooo, I can join you Enid - got my logs and coal in for tonight. Now how do you get your log fire going? I'm brilliant at making my coal fire but always found the logs harder to get going.

We use logs and coal and lots of firelighters!!

I put logs all round the grate, put a firelighter in the middle, cover it with kindling and put coal on top of the kindling. Before you know it the whole thing is burning merrily. Then just keep chucking logs at it until you are a)bored or b) too pissed to safely be in charge of a fire

It's not fair! I want to be a domestic goddess with a log fire too!

Scummy try this Put the video on the TV, nice mellow music on the CD, turn up the radiators really high, and pour out the eggnog

Yes but Scummy, think of that grate you have to clean out first before you have another fire, coming into a freezing room and knowing you can't just flick a switch for heat. Still, it does look fab when it's going

Enid, made my fire a la Enid and it was a roaring, ahem, success. Used much less coal so much more efficient

I got fed up with waiting until dh came home to light the fire, so I now consider myself a bit of a dab hand at it too!
However, don't try and do what I attempted last night which was to:

1. Light fire
2. Try and turn Aga back on
3. Cook ds his supper
4. Try and book summer holiday .... all at the same time.

I would advocate that fire lighters, and more firelighters are the answer in ressucitating a fire!!

Come on, fms, don't give us that, you're a woman, you can do 10 things at once! (She said, having spent the last 3 days doing nothing but try to source a holiday on the internet and still not finished...)

re lighting fires - if you happen to be out of kndling and/or firelighters you can make "sticks" out of rolled, twisted and looped sheets of newspaper - takes ages and you end up with black hands but it does work.

It was so mild at Christmas we got out of the habit of having a fire (and I spent ages cleaning out the grate and "dressing" the slate hearth too). Time we had one I think.

or kindling, even.

Good housekeeping this month has a month of cheap and easy suppers. There are some nice recipes in there. We had chicken in a pot tonight - onions, wedges of turnip, whole carrots, bacon bits, bouquet garni, whole chiken in a casserole. You have to brown everything first then put it all in the pan with a pint of chicken stock and 100ml white wine. After 30mins, take out and add some button mushrooms. Put back in for 50 mins then stir in chopped flat leaf parsley.

Servd with mash pots (or in our case, scooped out jacket pots where DH has the mash and DD has the skins and I have jkt pot).

Another winter fave is jkt pots, scooped out, mix in some cheese and seasoning with potato, put potato mixture back in, sprinkle grated cheese over and put back in oven. We like this served with pickles.

Ah, yes, but don't you agree, there's nothing like Heinz tomato soup to start warming those cockles!... sounds like you lot have got far too much time on your hands to be cooking up so many wonderous hotpots...tee-hee!

I do a lovely easy casserole. Preheat oven to about 180. Chop onions and celery, fry until soft/brown (whatever suits), put into casserole dish; brown pork shoulder steaks (or spare-rib chops, but you have to cut the bones out, fiddlier), lob them in on top, pour tin of veg soup (pref Heinz or Sains, Tesco's is thinner) into frying pan, add some Worcs sauce + salt & pepper, stir & poke to get bits off frying pan, pour over pork + veg in casserole, put lid on, put in oven, cook for 2-2½ hrs. Add some button mushrooms (cut up big ones) and cook for another 30 mins. Brill!

sueanna, Heinz cream of tomato is lovely, especially with broken up ritz crackers in it...

Enid, I haven't tried ritz crackers, but I like to dunk a chunky cheese sandwich in it! - very naughty I know, and not in the book of etiquette, but noone is going to know.... oh no I've just told millions of people!!!

try toasted cheese next time...heaven.

the BEST comfort food in the world (if you like anchovies) is a swedish dish called Janssons temptation - they give it to you at a party at 3am when your drunk and on your way home on your sledge! The only thing you must have is real swedish anchovies - they sell them in the food store at ikea now, so I always bring a big store back when I go.
For 2 very greedy people:

As many waxy (pref. organic) potatoes as you think you can eat, and then double it! (around 1lb per person)
2 tins swedish anchovies.
2 large onions.
2oz butter
1 pint single cream.

Cut all potatoes into very fine matchsticks. Slice onions finely ane cook in the butter until really soft & golden. Stir in the anchovies and their juice and mix until fish dissolves into lovely, oniony, fishy mess. Layer 1/2 the potatoes in a large gratin dish, spread onion mixture over + black pepper (no salt!). Cover with rest of potatoes, pour cream over and bake for at least 1hr at 180 until soft, golden and all liquid gone. Cover with foil if catching on top, and put a oven tray underneath to catch any drips that bubble up. May need cooking longer, depending on potato type.

Yummy.......

Mmmm, I'll print that out Manna, I haven't had Jansson's Temptation for ages and it's perfect in this weather.
I felt a primal need for Heinz tomato soup this lunchtime and it really did the trick. Felt much warmer!

French Onion Soup is our fave winter soup. Especially served with floating cheezy coutons - in fact big slabs of toast then grilled to melt the grated cheese, and lots of red wine/sherry/port/whatever is available in the soup.
Ooooh now I want some and it's 11 o'clock at night!

manna that sounds absolutely wonderful. Anchovies are my dhs favourite food and he has just turned 40 so I will make it for him as a late birthday dinner.

mana, made a special trip to Ikea yesterday and made it for last night's dinner - it was absolutely scrumptious.

Tinker, I did your sausage casserole last night (remainder for lunch too!!), it was delicious. I liked not having exact measurements, it meant I bunged in lots of cider just in case! So easy, so very tasty, thanks. Wish I had something tasty to add but I don't, sorry!