When people hear about comfort foods, they often think of mom's home cooking meatloaf and mashed potatoes, chicken soup, pot roast or warm and gooey chocolate-chip cookies.
These are simple foods with tastes and smells reminiscent of more carefree times, which may account for their spike in popularity within the past few months.
Favorite foods can be reassuring and comforting in times of stress or when someone needs a little pick-me-up. Others just conjure happy memories of being with loved ones.
When Chris Anderson, a teacher in McLouth, wants to make something nice for her family, she cooks homemade fried chicken and mashed potatoes with gravy made from the drippings.
"I do that whenever I have the time, like on Sundays," she said. "It's so good and you always eat too much."
Anderson comes from a home-cooking family. Her parents, Gary and LaVon Manear, own and run LaVon's Bakery and BBQ in Buhler. She said her parents make a lot of smoked meats smothered in barbecue sauce, rich German dishes and homemade pies.
But at her own home, Anderson said she often craves Mexican or something spicy so she turns to a well-used jambalaya recipe. She often serves the dish with homemade cornbread.
"If I don't have a lot of shrimp, I'll throw in some sausage or another kind of meat," she said. "That's the good thing about jambalaya you can just throw it all together and it still turns out great."
During the cold winter months, soup is a comforting food for Nancy O'Connor, nutrition educator and marketing director at the Community Mercantile Co-op, 901 Iowa. One of her family's favorite recipes is her potato, corn and cheese chowder.
"I make it dozens of times during winter," she said. "That's probably in the top 10 of food I make the most."
O'Connor's other favorite soup is minestrone made from whatever vegetables she has on hand and pasta.
"It's a real hearty soup and you serve it with a thick-crusted piece of bread," she said. "There's just something about homemade soup in this weather and the whole process. It steams up all your windows and it smells wonderful."
Amy Wierman of Lawrence said her chicken enchilada dip goes over well with her co-workers in the engineering department at Kansas University.
"My sister and I concocted this dip that everyone seems to like," she said. "We just worked with it until we got it right."
Baking cookies, cakes, bread or cinnamon rolls is another comfort for many cooks. Often, the recipes call for a little bit more handiwork.
O'Connor enjoys baking bread because of the relationship that takes place between one's hands and the dough. She said people often steer away from making homemade bread because of one ingredient yeast.
"People get scared because it falls when they put it in the oven or it doesn't rise," she said. "Focaccia is more forgiving. You just pat it out flat and poke a lot of holes in it before you put it in the oven."
O'Connor said the focaccia tastes fabulous with fresh rosemary and a little garlic, olive oil and parmesan cheese on top.
When the spirit moves her to bake, Wierman relies on two tried-and-true family recipes. Her family created a cake called Pumpkin Chess Cake that she has adapted a little.
For special occasions, she searches the back of her mind for a recipe from her Vogel-German heritage called Spitzbuben.
She said the traditional cookie takes a lot of work and is usually served only at weddings or on holidays.
"Some of the (family) recipes are ones that are just in your head and you just work with it until you know how to do it," she said.
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