Summer Comfort
Comfort food is exactly what the name implies: food that by its nature soothes us down to our very soul. This is not the sort of food that we typically think of this time of year; comfort food tends to be rich and heavy when the summer begs for light and airy. But with the world seemingly in turmoil from cyclones and earthquakes to flooding and fires, a little comfort food might be just what the doctor ordered.
If you Google “comfort food”, recipes with descriptors like “simple” and “home-cooked” pop up. The recipes themselves tend to range from Mac and Cheese to beef stew. In my head I pictures pots of rich sauces simmer away for hours or casseroles with coatings of cheese bubbling up and crisping over in a hot oven. It is the heat of the oven and the fire of the stove that warms us up on the outside during those hours of cooking comfort food before it even has a chance to heat us up from the inside out.
The problem with summer is that those images of ovens and burners heating up the house are about the last thing one is looking for when the temperature is rising outside. But comfort food is something we need sometimes even when the snow has long since melted away. So the trick is how to take some of our favorite comfort foods and make them into dishes we can prepare in a way that doesn’t heat up the house any more than what Mother Nature is managing on her own.
Enter everyone’s favorite summer cooking device, the grill. Cooking outside not only let’s you enjoy the season’s fine weather, but keeps the heat outdoors to mingle with the heat of the sun, not fighting the thermostat on your air conditioner.
So the trick to enjoying your favorite cold weather food in the height of the summer is to transform the flavors of those long cooking dishes into a quicker cooking version of its colder self.
Meatloaf might be one of the ultimate winter comfort foods. A blend of one or more ground meats, with perhaps some breads crumbs, smothered in sauce and baked to sliceable perfection, it is comfort food at its best. What’s great about meatloaf, and makes it perfect to transform into a summer-appropriate treat, is that its ingredients are very similar to one of summer’s favorite foods, the hamburger. If you take the same exact ingredients as your favorite meatloaf recipe and form it into patties instead of a giant loaf, you have meatloaf but on a bun! Just leave the sauce to the side and use it as a barbecue sauce to top the burger instead of a sauce to baste the meat in during cooking.
Another classic comfort food, mashed potatoes, seems to have a place at the table from Thanksgiving right through to next year’s Thanksgiving. But is letting a pot of potatoes boil on your stove for 15 minutes, then sweating through the mashing process, really how you want to spend your summertime? Probably not. If you slice potatoes into rounds cut the boiling time down to 4-5 minutes for a parboil, then move slices of potato to the grill to finish the cooking, you can even finish the grilled potato with some of your favorite mashed potato toppings like grated cheese or sour cream to get a different take on your favorite potato dish with a fraction of the heat and exertion.
Once you get started finding ways to Summer-ize your winter comfort food favorites, the possibilities seem endless. With a new crazy thing seeming to happen almost daily in this world we live in, comfort food is needed even when we aren’t all bundled up in sweaters. So lose the pea coat, throw on a bathing suit, and fire up the grill for some comforting favorites that work for any season.
Serves/Makes: 4
- 2 pounds Idaho potatoes, scrubbed, unpeeled, sliced 1/2-inch thick or in wedges
- salt
- 4 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 teaspoons kosher salt
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
- 1/4 cup grated Cheddar cheese, optional
Preheat a grill to medium heat.
Bring a large pot of well-salted water to a boil over medium-high heat. Add the sliced potatoes and boil for 4 minutes. Drain the potatoes well then transfer to a bowl with the olive oil, salt, and pepper. Toss gently to coat the potatoes in the oil.
Place the potato slices on the grill and cook for 3 minutes per side. Once the potatoes are turned over, top each slice with some grated cheese (if desired). Grill just until the cheese melts then remove the potatoes from the grill and serve immediately.
Made with pork sausage, breadcrumbs, Italian seasoning, kosher salt, black pepper, onion, garlic, ketchup, Dijon mustard, brown sugar
Serves/Makes: 8
- 6 slices bacon
- 1 1/2 pound 80/20 lean ground beef
- 1/2 pound ground pork sausage
- 1/4 cup Italian seasoned breadcrumbs
- 1 tablespoon Italian seasoning
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
- 1/2 cup diced onion
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 1 cup ketchup
- 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
- 2 tablespoons brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon cider vinegar
- 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
- salt and pepper
- 8 hamburger buns
Preheat the grill to medium-high heat.
Heat a large skillet over medium heat. Add the bacon and cook for 3-4 minutes or until the fat renders. Remove 2/3rds of the bacon with a slotted spoon and set aside.
Continue to cook the remaining bacon for 3 minutes or until just crispy. Remove the bacon from the pan with a slotted spoon and set aside. Do not drain the bacon grease.
Combine the partially cooked bacon (not the crisp ones) with the ground beef, sausage, bread crumbs, Italian seasoning, salt, and pepper in a bowl and mix well but do not over work the meat. Form the beef mixture into equal sized patties.
Place the burgers on the grill and cook for 5 minutes per side or until done.
Meanwhile, add the onion and garlic to the bacon fat in the skillet and cook over medium heat. Cook for 3 minutes or until soft. Add the ketchup, mustard, vinegar, and cayenne. Bring to a simmer and let cook for 5 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
Add the sauce to a blender with the crisp bacon. Process until smooth.
Place the cooked burgers on the buns and top with several tablespoons of the bacon barbecue sauce. Add any additional toppings as desired.
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