Comfort Food

Have you ever had a week when both wonderful and miserable life events were crammed into the same few days? I don’t mean anything Earth-shatteringly tragic, but enough to keep you up at night and feel stressed despite the fact that some great news has just hit.  I have, and last week was in fact one of those weeks.

In times of stress, I, like most people I know, gravitate toward comfort food.  I might find a plate in front of me like this one:

Fried green tomatoes, corn bread, and mac and cheese.  At least the nutrition-minded angel on my shoulder kept the devil in check by limiting my intake to two tomato slices, half the macaroni, and one piece of cornbread. And Mike’s pickle chip.

Tonight, to round out what I believe is the end of my comfort-binge I made Angela from Oh She Glows’ pumpkin maple baked bean with cornbread casserole. Quite the mouthful of a name, but it really gives you a clear picture of what it tastes like.

Basically you add a bunch of stuff to a pot and then transfer the sweet deliciousness into a casserole dish, trying not to consume it all before it hits the oven.

Combine all the cornbread ingredients and pour on top of the baked bean layer.

Bake for a little over a half hour.

Scoop out a serving and pair with some nice greens. Salad or a steamed/cooked green works just as well.

Yum.  One eighth of the recipe is a pretty filling serving (pictured above) and it has a pretty good breakdown, albeit a calorie-dense one.

Lots of protein, good on the iron and calcium which tend to be a little trickier for me.  I did make a couple changes to the recipe: regular molasses instead of blackstrap, just 1 Tbsp of mustard, regular flour the first time around/half regular half oat the second, skipped the flax because I don’t have it, and regular 2% milk.  The cornbread was as light and fluffy as normal, so maybe the almond milk would make it doughier. I found the leftovers to be delicious and the cornbread kept just fine.

With only three of eight servings eaten up, it looks like I have dinner set for the week.  I’ll take some extra comfort in knowing that’s crossed off the to-do list.