Cooking Without Loving It: Inherited Comfort Food Recipes from the Heart
We can never have too many Midwest comfort food recipes. Thus, you’ll get quite a few in this post.
Today’s podcast guest is Amanda Runia, a busy mom, South Dakota business owner, and self-proclaimed non-cook who has still managed to gather an abundance of beloved Midwest comfort food recipes from her family.
Drawing from the kitchens of her mother-in-law, grandmother, and mom, Amanda shares her approach to keeping mealtime manageable and delicious, plus her go-to resources for recipes that bring a little warmth and nostalgia to the table—even though she doesn’t inherently love cooking.
Listen to Funeral Potatoes & Wool Mittens, season 3 episode 5, wherever you get your podcasts. Or listen in the Spotify player below or on YouTube.
Amanda tells the stories behind a few of her cherished, inherited recipes like rhubarb juice, chicken divan, alfredo sauce, goulash and her mom’s potato salad.
Comfort Food Recipes
I like that Amanda referred to her most-used recipes as a recipe deck. That’s a fun way to think about it. Luckily, she shared a bunch of those so here they are:
Amanda’s Alfredo Sauce
Rhubarb Juice
From Amanda: The juice you do like maybe 1/3 juice and 2/3 pop (most do Mello Yellow or Mountain Dew) but its ‘to taste.’
Hamburger Rice Skillet
Grandma Jo Casserole
Campfire Stew
Turkey or Chicken Wild Rice Soup
Goulash
Chicken Divan
Cheeseburger Macaroni, Beef Taco Skillet and Skillet Macaroni Pizza
Comfort food on the labels. Amanda recalled how much her mom liked to use back-of-the-box, tried and true recipes. Here’s three.
In-House Ally, Amanda at Work
In addition to being a busy mother of three elementary-aged children, Amanda also owns In-House Ally, a business coaching service based in Brookings, South Dakota.
Check out In-House Ally on her website https://in-houseally.com and Instagram @inhouseally. Get in touch with Amanda via email at hello@in-houseally.com.
Connect with Amanda Runia
- Instagram: @amanda.runia
- Goodreads
- LinkedIn
- Facebook
- Substack
also mentioned
In this Episode
- Mother-in-law’s hash brown baked potatoes
- Mel’s Kitchen Cafe
- Mel’s Kitchen Cafe baked oatmeal recipe
- Mel’s Kitchen Cafe chocolate pots de creme recipe
- The Lazy Genius
- The Lazy Genius change your life chicken podcast episode
- The Lazy Genius change your life chicken recipe
- Instagram: @thelazygenius
- Canoe Bay
- Bri McCoy The Cooks Book
- The I Hate to Cook Book
- The Ettlin’s Cafe (Harry Potter flights)
- The Nook
- Rabbit Den’s Gaming
- Author John Mark Comer
- Author Stuart Turton
One last recipe, this one from me. As I think about all the comfort food recipes I have, one of the coziest to me is scalloped potatoes and hamburger (or ham). Here’s my recipe.
Sweet wishes,
