The Call of the Comfort Food

Welcome dear readers! Howdy to the new subscribers! They sheep are asking for pumpkins, did you happen to bring them any? They do love their pumpkins!!

Ahhh… fall is giving us a taste of itself these past few weeks.  Days in the 70’s to low 80’s.  Nights dipping down into the high 30’s.  No frost so far, but a few warnings have come out for it.  The trees are shedding their golden leaves, and the days are getting shorter. 

The call of the comfort food has been strong. 

Both as a reaction to the changing season, and an emotional crutch as I rapidly approach the 3^rd anniversary of the death of my Robyn. 

I still can’t believe he is gone, let alone gone for 3 years now.  How is that even possible?  I’ve lived in our dream house longer without him than I got to live in it with him.  It’s just not right.  Not right at all.

So, it’s fair to say I’ve been doing a bit of binging on the comfort food lately. 

Bridies was the first thing I made.  These are a version of meat pie from Scotland.  Not to be confused with pasties.  Bridies don’t contain vegetables in them like pasties do.  I was not happy with how the meat sorta became more like a hamburger than a loose mix which I had been hoping for.  I’ll have to try something different the next time I make them.   They were still tasty thought. 

Making Bridies

I’ve made pasties before and you can find those in this post.

A chicken pie came next.  Savory, meaty, veggie, and gravylicious!  Sorry I don’t have a picture of it sliced, the pie perfume addled my brain and I forgot. 

Chicken pie

You can find my recipe for chicken pie below.

Biscuits and gravy night.  How can you go wrong with that for a meal?  Again, food fumes made me plumb forget to take pictures. 

I have pics in the post below.

Bangers and mash.  Back to the British Isles for this one.  I use the Johnsonville sausage links for this dish, with home made mashed, and (sadly) packaged gravy.  After all this time I’m still not good at making real gravy.  I won’t complain much, it was very tasty.

And last night, I was feeling the need for something sweet and put an apple spice dump cake into the crock pot.  First time I’ve made one of these before.  I think I will need to either add more butter or a bit of apple juice/cider to the mix next time.  ¾’s of the way thru cooking and there was still dry cake mix on the top.  I added more butter and gave the whole thing a mix to get it damp.  Plus, I added 30 mins cooking time to it, and still think it needed maybe 30 mins more. 

Apple Spice Dump Cake

Still good served warm with a shot of whipped cream!

These foods, except for the recently added cake, were Rob’s favorites.  When he was still working at Kodak, he would call me at lunch every day and ask what was for dinner.  I loved hearing the verbal drooling from him when I told him one of his favorites was on deck.  It gave me great pleasure to see him enjoying his dinner, or breakfast, or whatever else I cooked for him. 

I miss him so much.

Do you have a favorite comfort food? Please share it with me in the comments!

In other farm news:

The sheep cleaned up the side pasture and are now on winter hay.  Ugh, too soon this year!!!  Everyone is fat and sassy though.  And the side pasture and around the house look great with all the growth mowed down. 

We have had no rain for weeks now, and it’s so dry here.  There had been lots of small to medium sized wildfires in the area, and currently two larger ones burning north and west of me.  Please do some nekked dancing around a fire to bring the rain!

Miss Lucy is still getting around.  The small cold fronts we have had come in are making her ache as much as they make me ache.  She comes down to the back door once or twice a day to get her drink and cookies.   She is such a good girl!

A flock of wild turkeys has been hanging around.  They discovered that Brandy is sometimes messy with her grain, and they have made it their mission to clean up that for her.  This group looks like a bunch of young hens and jakes.  Nobody has a beard yet, and I suspect they are this past springs hatchlings.  It’s amazing that they have no fear of Brandy, the sheep or me and will let me get about 10’ away from them before they start to move away. 

Of course, the mornings they decide to show up are the mornings I’ve left my phone in the house.  I’m trying to make it a point to put it in my pocket now that I’m having to wear a jacket when I’m out doing chores. 

The outside dogs got skunked the other night.  I think one got too close to the fence line and the woofers got to barking at it when the stinky bugger let loose.  They didn’t sustain a direct hit, but got enough that it was obvious what happened.  No bath’s were given, and the scent has since worn off on it’s own.  All three were pretty sheepish (see what I did there?) about being sprayed. 

Thanks for visiting and I hope you all have a great week!

Blessed Be!