Slow Down & Warm Up With These Comforting Recipes
Fall is always a busy time of year with school in full swing, holidays approaching, and the leisurely days of summer a distant memory. Thankfully, fall recipes are known for being comforting and soothing—just what we all need to bring us back to the table, and back to each other, at the end of a long day.
I'm including a list of my very own comfort food recipes, some for those rare, special days you have time to spend in the kitchen, and some for the more common crazy days when you just need to come home to a warm slow cooker full of love. The good news with the non-slow cooker recipes is that they can be made a day or more in advance and just gently re-heated when you want to serve.
Click the titles to go straight to my recipes:
1. Slow Cooker White Chicken Chili Verde:
I know it's not fair to pick favorites, but this might be my favorite slow cooker recipe. It turned out far better than I ever imagined it would—it does require a bit of prep work but it can be done the day before.
Considering the color of this stew isn't the most beautiful, I like to use a little trick that I call garnish, garnish, garnish. A sprinkling of cilantro, a few lime wedges, and some homemade crispy tortilla chips were all this bowl of goodness needed to be camera ready. And of course, pop your photo into the BeFunky Photo Editor to brighten, contrast, and sharpen as I taught you in this post: Spruce Up Your Food Photos
2. Moldovan Borscht:
This recipe combines health with comfort—not always easy to do. I hope you'll check this one out despite its exotic sounding name. It is really just chicken and vegetable soup. I learned how to make this from a Moldovan woman (my dad's GF), while staying with him in Afghanistan—this is the real deal. My photo tips for this one? Garnish of course, with a bit of chopped parsley or dill. But my real secret with this one is, I actually took this photo the day after I made it. Why, you ask? To avoid the steam!
And if you're finding your photos are looking especially drool-worthy, you can always turn them into tantalizing recipe pins.
3. Dad's Chicken and Sausage Gumbo:
This is from my childhood. Nothing tastes like gumbo, nothing smells like gumbo, nothing replaces gumbo. My son requests this every so often and I'm always thrilled to oblige. Again, the green onions and white rice both give this very brown dish a bit of necessary makeup. Check this recipe out. It is so very comforting (to make and eat) on a cold day.
4. Cream of Mushroom Soup:
This recipe celebrates the humble mushroom and puts that little can we're all familiar with to shame. Aesthetically, I love the creamy soft color of this soup and I didn't want to add a green herb on top to interrupt that, so I just chose a beautiful bowl to add a bit of color. I also blurred the edges using the Photo Editor to make it even more dreamy. Sigh...
5. Spanish-Style Slow Cooker White Bean and Sausage Stew
Lastly, another slow cooker recipe. This has a flair of elegance with the saffron, but it is simple and comforting with the beans and sausage—a wonderful recipe to have cooking on your countertop all day. This photo was taken at night, with unnatural lighting. I've decided to show you the before and after BeFunky versions; I'm not proud of the first photo, but it is a wonderful illustration of why natural light is so important for food photos, and it also shows how you can put your trust in BeFunky! I just let go of all control and used the Auto Enhance feature. You can be the judge of the results.
Pretty amazing, huh? Almost as amazing as the recipe.
Slow down a bit and give these recipes a try. Snap some pics, and let the BeFunky Photo Editor take care of the details—sharpen, brighten, contrast, blur, or just let the auto enhance feature do all the work for you. Then share the photos, and the recipes, with your loved ones.
Happy fall, y'all! Show off your coziest food photos with us today:
