Comfort Food

Macaroni & Cheese, Mashed Potatoes, Meat Loaf - you name it - comfort food. My comfort food is a little out of reach - my mom's cooking. It's been more than 20 years now since I had my mom's Smoor Kip or Sayur Lodeh, these foods are comfort for me. Our menu consisted mainly of indonesian cuisine. I begged for spaghetti on occasion, but these days, if I had a choice, I would probably pick food from my youth over pasta.

Meal time at our house was always at the table and always together. Dinner was ready at 5pm when my dad arrived home from work. Meals were always home cooked and sometimes, not often, one meal would stretch over 2 or 3 nights in a row - this explains why I do not care for left-overs very much. I miss those meals though, my mom really was a good cook. I learned about cooking and how to cook by spending time in the kitchen with her and watching her cook and sometimes helping out. At 16 I made my first indo dish, Smoor, which turned out pretty well.

This last weekend Tom and I chunked up a pork roast and put the chunks into a marinade of Ketjap (sweet soy sauce), djintan (cumin), onions and salt & pepper. It wasn't exactly like mom's, but it worked. The house smelled just like home and it was heavenly. Last night I tried a recipe for yellow rice. My goodness was that good! The flavor comes from the coconut milk and the color from Turmeric. I found out yesterday that if you get turmeric on anything it will stain...oh well - the kitchen counters are not that special anyway. I have most of the ingredients for the Sayur Lodeh, that may be the next dish I whip up!

Here's to cooking like my mom! The best cook ever!

Here is the site that I found some recipes from...

http://www.rugebregt.com/index.html