C-19 and comfort

This entire covid-19 stuff is crazy. And my kids are done with it, they want it gone. So our family is joining in the World Wide Good Friday Fast April 10.  To start our fast, we will start after dinner Thursday night, and it will go through until Friday evening.

Going a bit stir crazy, we were so happy to have nice warm weather yesterday and today. We all got a little sun burn, but we got to be outside in our yard. We played, we weeded, we checked trees for winter damage (I think I lost two trees, makes me sad) and we made a yummy dinner.

Comfort food is what is needed right now. And I am so thankful I made some sourdough starter back in February, because we have been using it. I have worked hard to figure out how to make this yummy.

1. Let your sourdough bread dough ferment in the fridge, this helps it to rise slowly, but also helps it to work better.
2. When it is time to put it into the oven, slash your dough! Extremely sharp thin knife or with a razor blade slash the dough about 1/4-inch deep. This helps with oven spring, or letting it rise correctly.
3. Mist your dough with water after slashing, but right before putting into your dutch-oven. Weather your dutch oven is piping hot from the oven or room temperature, mist it before putting into the pan.
4. Cook with the lid on for the first 15 to 20 minutes. Then remove the lid. Again, this helps with oven spring (rising in the oven). The texture of the crust is amazing if you do this too. My little guy prefers the crust this way.


Another comfort food it just food  our family normally eats. We love fresh salad, but unfortunately I am not going to go to the store for a long while, and my garden is not ready to grow anything yet. I love soups, casseroles, smoking fish and other meats, bbq, and just yummy food. Yesterday for dinner I had to make some major comfort food. All the kids were losing it, the youngest feeling like everyone doesn't like him because he can't play with friends. We went for a bike ride, waved to neighbors, and then we made dinner together.

What did we make?  Chicken Coconut Curry and it was AMAZING! Everyone went back for seconds, except the littlest one because he never goes back for seconds so we have learned to give him a large serving and not expect him to eat all of it.

Only one serving left in the crock pot.

This is one of those recipes that you can make as spicy as you like using sriracha sauce. We do not use the cilantro because there is someone that is extremely sensitive to it in our house. But honestly it is wonderful to add during serving, it adds a freshness. I just squeeze the lime into the pot just before serving. Not a lot of the juice, just a little.

We usually serve this over jasmine rice, but because of the run on rice at the store, I had to use what I had at home, which was just long grain rice. It worked. It was delicious. Below you see my second bowl of curry. I only add enough sriracha to give this a little heat, not so it covers up the flavor of the meal. I asked my kids to explain this dish. Tell me how it tastes, and they all just said super yummy and that they didn't know what it was but it just made them feel calm.

This is the real meaning of comfort food. It brought them calm, it made them happy.

Another comfort food I have not had in years, Libby Chicken Noodle Dinner. I used to love that for dinner. But it is no longer available. This to me is also comfort food. I wish it would come back. I can't even find a picture of it on the internet to show you. So sad, that was a yummy meal in a can. Great to have in your food storage.

What else comforts you? For me, it's rocking with my little one in our favorite rocking chair. Getting hugs. Snuggling my dogs. Sitting in the sunshine. Being with my family.

How about you?