Comfort Food: Potatoes!

My ultimate comfort food is the potato, in any of its various forms. I know it sounds pretty boring, but if we were honest with ourselves, comfort food often is kind of boring. It's the Mac and Cheese that people call comfort food, not the gourmet dishes. Of course, everyone has a different favorite comfort food. It seems to me that comfort food usually reminds us of growing up, giving us fond memories of excitedly awaiting dinner as a child. Sometimes, it simply makes our bellies sigh in happiness. For me, I think it's because a lot of my family's dishes centered around that deliciously starchy tuber. For some reason, it makes me feel happy, safe, and warm. Baked, fried, hash browned, boiled, mashed - any way you can cut or cook it - it still has that effect on me.

On today, Comfort Food Monday, I wanted to share with you a list of my top five favorite potato dishes, in no particular order:

1. Potato soup

2. A big bowl of mashed potatoes with Punk Rock Chickpea Gravy (from Vegan with a Vengeance), piled high, with corn on the side.

3. Baked potato with all the fixings (broccoli, fake bacon bits, Tofutti sour cream, chives, etc.)

4. Fries! (this is a given though)

5. A simple pile of mashed potatoes with a dollop of Earth Balance, a veggie on the side, and either Chickpea Cutlets or Smokey Grilled Tempeh (both from Veganomicon).

I also stumbled across a different and awesome way to prepare my favorite veggie. This idea comes from another MOFO'er. I was looking through our fantastic list of MOFOing vegan blogs and found this gem - Welsh Onion Cake on The Great Vegan Conspiracy blog. Onions? Potatoes? Cake? I was instantly in love and had to make it. This recipe did not disappoint. The potatoes practically melt in your mouth. If you love potatoes, definitely give this lovely dish a try.

I hope everyone else is enjoying all the lovely food posted by all the MOFO'ers this month. There is no end to the all the gorgeous food flooding the web. I'm hoping to find more favorites as the month goes on.