Monday, September 12, 2011

Comfort Food: Three Ways

because sometimes one is just not going to cut it.

Who has these days? The days when everything is slightly off and nothing is easy? When you have a doctor's appointment and your car breaks down before you get the chance to buy groceries? And the baby's fussy and those pants are getting tight? And that student keeps emailing about that one thing and Netflix keeps pausing to "retrieve" something or other?

No one?

Just me?

Well, now I know you're lying. Because those things happened to me, my boyfriend, me, my BFF, me, me, and everyone who uses Netflix. This week. In that order.

So let's take comfort in food, shall we?

It's the right thing to do.

Let's start with the good ol' American brown bag staple.


The PB & J. Peanut butter and strawberry jam, in this case.

Our first way is simple.


PB & J, sliced on the diagonal (requirement), in a ziploc bag (requirement).

The unrequired elements of overenthusiastic, early morning posing will no doubt provide some level of comfort. But warm up to this advanced placement, day improving activity, please. I don't want you to pull something.

Our second PB & J manipulation came to me direct from the boyfriend.


Well. The idea did. I wish she made it for me, but I had to handle this one myself.

Anyway... enough of that. Grilled PB & J!


It's as easy as it is delicious. Take any ol' PB & J sandwich, butter the outside pieces of bread, and toss that thing into a frying pan or onto your panini grill (my choice).

The bread gets buttery toasty like a grilled cheese and the peanut butter and jam get warm and omgamazing.

Try it tonight with a glass of milk as a late night snack and you will not be disappointed. The comfort will be overwhelming.

Finally, our third PB & J is...

can you guess?


PB & J French toast. : )

Shock and awe, right? Okay... the shock I'll let go. But the awe you should keep. Because it's really, really tasty.

And just like our other manips, super easy to do: Take a PB & J sandwich, soak it (one side at a time) in an egg, milk, vanilla mixture, brown it on both sides in a frying pan, and bake it until it puffs up and is firm to the touch.

Pair it as you would any other sweet, filled french toast. I chose scrambled eggs with some serious hot sauce. And syrup. Because I like it. And butter. Because how would one compose a picture of french toast without a pat of butter?

Mmmm... Are you feeling comforted yet?

In all honesty, I am. These PB & Js might have been made over a week ago, at different occasions, but... just writing about them has calmed down a bit.

So... let me take my small bit of comfort and go back to my busy day. And just maybe, when it's all over, I'll comfort myself with something other than food. Or... maybe not. : )

I'm curious. What's your comfort food of choice?

6 comments:

Kate said...

My list of comfort foods is so long I'm realizing I might need comforting from food way too often. Or comforting in general way too often. Grilled cheese and tomato soup, macn'cheese, and mom's chicken and dumplings (not all together) are at the top of my list but enchiladas are quickly adding themselves as well.

I'm totally trying the grilled pb+j. That sounds delightful!

Kaitlin said...

Grilled PB&J sounds amazing! Except. I like to leave off the J and just have the PB. And add a sliced banana. Ok, grilled PB&B! I need to make that happen.

That French toast bit looks delicious, too. Watery mouth, what?

My comfort foods are all wintery-foods. Grilled cheese and tomato soup, hot chocolate, pot roast and potatoes, and desserts. Which are not just winter-y foods, clearly.

kmari03 said...

OMG PB&J french toast!! Such a good idea! I made PB&J pancakes a few weeks ago, but why bother deconstructing? Leave it to a grad student to complicate what doesn't need to be complicated.

Meg Hall said...

PB&J is one of my weekly staples... and I still look forward to every time. These sound ::amazing:: :)

Eva said...

How about this one? I took last week off from work. I've taken exactly 1 day off before that so far this year. Tuesday my roof started leaking into my living room. Friday my carpeted finished basement flooded. I could definitely use one of these. If I had bread, I would totally make one. Probably the grilled because I don't have milk to make the french toast. And the french toast needs a dusting of powdered sugar! Hopefully both of our weeks get better....

Amanda said...

I'm glad that so many of you appreciate the pb&j too! Probably my most indulgent comfort food is macaroni and cheese from a box. That's when you know this girl has gotten really in a place.

And Me!, that is a truly disappointing way to spend a vacay. Tell me it got better.