Have I mentioned before that I have a bag problem, issues with too many bags, more bags than I could ever use, a lovely collection of knitting bags? I think bags appeal to my “I want to be organized” nature. Or my “Oh, isn’t that beautiful? I need that.” nature. Therefore, we tend to carry a lot of different bag options for you at The Loopy Ewe, and I have personally tested and used each type. (Yeah, that’s it. I NEED to be testing all of these lines….) At the moment, I have three favorites (and I’m fickle. This will change with the wind.) I love my Offhand Designs Weekender bag. I packed this one to the gills and took it with us on Spring Break. It holds so much, and it’s in my favorite colors, Peppermint Mocha. (They call it Ruby Splash, but it’s clearly Peppermint Mocha.) We got a lot of different 
fabrics in, but I went for that one right out of the box. Another favorite is my new Atenti bag, which arrived last week. I will admit to having trouble picking out the one I wanted, because they’re all so cute. I picked Pops, but I have my eye on two others as well. This is another bag that would hold a whole weeks worth of knitting if you were to take it on vacation. (It also makes a great carry-on bag if you fly.) The fabrics are gorgeous and the workmanship is top notch. I love this new line. A lot of you are getting these in the mail this week and I know you’re going to be so happy with them. We have another order to put in with them already. My other favorite bag is my Namaste Laguna bag that I just received in the new Peacock color. 
I like how soft the animal-friendly faux leather is, I like that I can just wipe it off with a damp sponge if someone’s Latte should happen to drip, and I like how roomy it is inside. We just got a whole new shipment of all of the colors (and the new Newport Style bag) in and put them all up today. I know you’ve been waiting on them! (Several of you also have bag problems lovely knitting bag collections, and I like that about you.) Oh – and the Red Canvas Loopy Sock Bags are back in stock, too. Another bag that I like….
Remember that Little Loopy mentioned that we have Elf Cassie working here for the summer? Cassie is in college and will be getting married this summer (but we get to keep her until August). Her brother and sister have taken to calling her “Keebz”, since she’s a Loopy Elf and they liken that to the Keebler Elves. (Doesn’t that sound like a brother/sister thing to do?) They bought her a fun shower gift – a Loopy T-Shirt – and they personalized the back for her. Here she is showing the front and the back in the photo. We thought it was really cute and made her wear it around Loopy Central today. (Does that make her fiance “Mr. Keebz”? Just wondering.)
Today’s recipe is a delicious Macaroni and Cheese dish that takes comfort food to a whole new level. YUM!!
Mac and Cheese Crumble
1 pound pasta (corkscrew holds the sauce on best, but use your favorite)
4 slices day old bread
1 Tbl. extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 lb. mozzarella cheese, grated (about 2 cups)
1/2 lb. cheddar cheese, grated (about 3 cups)
1/2 lb. Gruyere cheese, grated (about 3 cups)
1/2 lb. fontina or provolone cheese, grated (about 2 cups)
1/2 lb. bacon, cut into 1 ” strips
10 Tbl. butter (unsalted)
3 1/2 cups milk
1/3 cup flour
Stir fry bacon pieces in a large saute pan until done. Remove to drain on paper towels. Chop bread by hand or in a food processor until crumbly. Add 2 Tbl. bacon drippings to 3 Tbl. butter in a pan, and toss in bread crumbs. Stir until they are lightly golden and crisp. Set aside.
Cheese Sauce: Heat milk over medium heat (do not boil). Melt 6 Tbl. butter in a separate saucepan and whisk in flour until smooth. Whisk in warmed milk next and cook until it starts to thicken (stirring occasionally.) Remove from heat and add in your cheeses, stirring until melted. Add bacon and salt and pepper to taste.
Cook pasta about 8-9 minutes in a large pot of salted water. Drain and rinse with cold water. Add pasta to cheese combination and stir well. Put in 9 x 13 pan and top with bread crumbs. Bake at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes, or until hot and bubbling.
June Blog Contest: I know you’re not supposed to view food as “comfort” – any smart dieter will tell you that. Nevertheless, there are some foods (like mac and cheese) that just DO make you feel better. 🙂 At least until you get on the scale again. Leave a comment and let us know what your favorite comfort food is – this could be something that you like to eat now, or something that you liked to eat growing up. We’ll use the random number generator to pick a winner next Friday from all of the comments. (The winners of our monthly blog contests receive a $30 gift certificate to The Loopy Ewe. Maybe you need a new bag??)
Sheri funtoseesomanyofyousigningupforthenextKAL!
My fave comfort food is definitely pizza. Anytime I don’t feel well or need to be put in a better mood, pizza is the cure. Works every time.
Oh yeah. And bags? I almost bought a mini tote bag from the little girl’s department of Meijer’s because I thought it would make such a cute little sock in progress bag. It was a pretty blue green with tiny flip flops embroidered all over it.
Yum comfort foods. I’m a southern girl so Shrimp with cheese grits has to top my list. Really bad days also require chocolate chip cookies warm from the oven.
Bag fetish–yes!!! Yarn fetish–yes!!! Dark chocolate is my comfort food and almost any homemade cookie. Then there is macaroni and cheese, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and last but not least potato chips and onion dip. I love food!!! Good thing I love to cook and bake,too!
I have a cookie recipe that I got from a murder mystery novel (of all places… the heroine is a caterer). In my version, there are milk chocolate chips, craisins, coconut, and cashews. I don’t make them often, because I inhale them when I do… I just can’t stop. Everyone I have given them to loves them, too.
Recently, I tried out a new recipe that has totally become a favorite comfort food. Creamy french onion soup. YUM!
My favorite comfort food is Mac & Cheese. The recipe you posted looks very appealing. Of course, chocolate after the Mac & Cheese is all the more comforting.
Bags, yes, I too have a bag collection. Lately, I’m hooked on knitting cotton bags for groceries, etc. I suspect that many handknitted cotton bags will be gifted by me this year.
My comfort food is sourdough toast and 2 eggs sunny side up. but if this is too much work anything in the pasta and cream sauce/cheesy does it for me. Eyeing the Namaste bags….
Yes! Bags! I love bags! I have so many, but want more. As for comfort food…Chinese food-chicken fried rice, anything with chocolate chips and peach cobbler. Couldn’t limit it to just one thing. 🙂
Doesn’t every new project deserve the honor of a new bag? At least in this part of New Jersey it does! How can I resist those bags – yarn is almost becoming an incidental!
My most favorite comfort food is home-cooked rice pudding with raisins served warm. If I really need a lot of comfort I soak those little raisins in rum first before adding them to the pudding to fortify my spirits.
Life is good!
Favorite comfort food? My mom’s brownies – she used the Chocolate Syrup recipe from the Betty Crocker cookbook, which makes a big ‘ol baking sheet full of brownies with a thick fudgy frosting on top. She’d make these practically every rainy day when we were kids (in southern California, rainy days are big deals!), so the whole house smelled like chocolate when we’d come in. Thanks for all the great memories, Sheri!
When I was in first grade, they asked us our favorite foods. Mine was “Broccoli and Mashed Potatoes” It still is. I can justify the butter in the potatoes with the broccoli, but not if I add cheese.
Also Nestle Toll house Chocolate Chip Cookies…. They were the kind that my mom makes, and taught me to make.
I have a rule about bags. I have a Rubbermaid tub in the closet. When I ‘need’ a new bag, I look there first and sometimes I can find something I’ll use. If I can’t, then the new bag is designated ‘different’ and therefore justifiable.
Most comfort foods are the wrong things to eat, especially when depressed. And my favorites are no exception: Bud Light Beer and a package of Doritos Corn Chips (a big bag, no less!). My family could/can always tell if my spirits are really down, because that’s when I come home with the six-pack and the chips. I usually only drink one of the cans of beer, but eat a lot of chips, and that sends the blood pressure skyrocketing! Thankfully, these periods of needing the comfort food are far lower now that I’ve retired from the Legal Office I used to work in. Spending time at home knitting socks makes me feel MUCH better now.
One of my fave comfort foods is enchiladas. MMmm all that cheesy goeyness. May have to make it by the Mexican restaurant today…
I love anything with melted cheese and creamy for comfort. That mac and cheese recipe looks like it’s to die for! 🙂
Mashed potatoes and cheese!
mac and cheese is always good! I also like plain pasta or brie and baguette. and of course wine!
Pasta is my comfort food…good ole rigatoni with butter & sprinkled with Parmesan cheese. Delish!
I live in NJ, and we have lots of “real” diners here. My favorite is called Tick Tock Diner on Rt. 3 in Clifton. They serve diner mac & cheese topped with chili, and then top the chili with a slice of melted yellow cheese. Delish! Sometime I eat it till I get sick!
A big, stuffed baked potato. Sour cream, cheese, bacon, butter….. My butt is getting bigger just thinking about it.
My favorite comfort food…hm…..I guess I would have to go with Mac and cheese, but the KRAFT in the box brand. Just something about the taste, I guess! Love it.
I like mac and cheese with corn mixed in. I eat it every time my kids go to stay with Gramma!
My comfort food is risotto topped with a sprinkle of parm cheese or pizza with my home made sourdough crust, or chocolate. I live in Britain with the bestest chocolate factories, imo. YUM!
I struggled with this answer…. seriously, I love food… how can I pick one dish!!! That’s almost blasphemy!
So, I thought about it…. there’s one food that Mom would make, (and still does) that I love above everything else. I think even though I do the recipe just like she does, I like hers better. Also, I could eat a ton of this even if I was already full, just because I didn’t want to miss out!…. It’s Mom’s Green Bean Casserole! OMG! It’s so yummy! Usually for Thanksgiving I only eat the sides and make that 2 servings of GBC thank you very much!!! It’s the best!!
Cerina
My favorite comfort food is Oreos. And cheese. Not together, but one after the other. I know it’s weird, but they totally go “together” in my head. I love them. Speaking of which, I should get some Oreos. It’s been a while!
I think my favorite long-term comfort food is Cheeze It’s. I just love those things 🙂
I love lots of terrible foods, but my all time comfort food is rice and peas. I just love the combination, and it’s one of the few mildly healthy things mom could get me to eat as a young’un. Yum–that and everyone else’s comments have made me hungry!
Oh my goodness..there are a LOT of favorite food comments here! Sheri, you have definitely struck a cord with the fave food thing.
My favorite….but takes forever to make and maybe that’s why it tastes so good…is Chicken Pot Pie (but not in the summer!).
My favorite comfort food–well, I actually have two. The first is mashed potatoes made with Yukon Gold potatoes, butter and a splash of cream, topped with a rich mushroom gravy. The second is a tofu scramble–hash browns, diced baked tofu, and eggs, washed down with grapefruit juice. I can eat this every day!
My favorite comfort food is garlic bread of all things!
Can’t get enough of it and if it comes with pizza even better!!!!
Favorite comfort food? Banana oatmeal chocolate chip cookies.
Now, off to my kitchen…
Hands down – homemade bread with butter & cinnamon sugar with a cup of peppermint tea. That was what my mom made when we were feeling down. Or maybe just ice cream . . .
Bags… pretty!!
I think my chocolate ice cream-peanut-maple syrup combo is my favourite comfort food…
But I’m also partial to: mashed potatoes, garlic bread…
My favorite comfort food is homemade chicken and noodles served over mashed potatoes. Heavy on the starcy side, but wow the comfort it brings. The world could fall down around you.
Cheeseburger and fries, heavy on the grease, and chocolate chocolate chocolate nut and chocolate ice cream. Yum yum!
Comfort foods….got a lot of em’. Homemade potatoe salad, baked beans, and all time favorite…moose stew. Don’t make that face till you try it!!!!!
Coming from a southern family, I have MANY favorite comfort foods! At the top of the list is my grandmother’s coconut pie, a recipe I transcribed from her recipe cards a few years ago, but now know by heart.
Sadly, breakfast cereal straight from the box is what I turn to.
My comfort food is cereal. I love cereal. I love cereal and cold milk and I could eat it *anytime,* day or night. Yum. Cereal.
Campbell’s tomato rice soup (with croutons) and the favorite grilled cheese sandwich–but swiss cheese on rye bread. YUM!
Grilled cheese sandwiches ….. my ultimate comfort food….and now I have discovered they are great with a grilled tomato on them!
Mac n’ cheese, grilled cheese sandwiches…hmmm…yummy! I also loved Mom’s meatball subs-all my friends asked when she was making them so they could get “invited” over!!!
I’m envious of your Laguna bag. Someday…
My favorite “comfort food” is bean soup. My dad used to make it when I was growing up. It was inexpensive and easy for him to make. He’d start it the night before and leave it cooking in the the crock pot all day long. I’d come home after a long, cold day and share soup and cornbread with him. (We lived in Ohio, and it could get really cold in the winter!)
Thanks for bringing back cozy memories!
My favorite comfort food is bread pudding. I love it with raisins and just a little warm milk poured on top. Yum
I hope you are all safe…and not near any flooding there Sheri.
For me, it is buttery scrambled eggs with bacon and toast. Talk about feeling good…for a short while at least!
My favorite comfort food is soup. It doesn’t matter what kind, I love them all, and it doesn’t matter what the season is. I can and do eat soup all year long but especially if I’m feeling a little under the weather.
Fresh out of the oven chocolate chip cookies. And cold milk. Ah, I feel better now! If you throw some craisins in batter then you have 4 of the 5 basic food groups covered – the 5th being the chocolate group.
Love the new bags! My comfort food is homemade soup–any kind.
Easy: my fish pie. Two types of haddock and lots of fresh prawns, cooked in cream and full fat milk, then strained. With the milk you make a roux, add the fish, then top it with cheesy mashed potatoes. The whole dish has ‘heart attack’ written all over it but it’s my favourite fish dish. Last time I made it, I got my partner to buy the fish for it and he loves experimenting, so we had 4 or 5 different types of fish in it. That was probably the best one I’ve ever made. Yum.
I would have to say that meatloaf with mash potatoes is my confort food.