Contest: Share Your Top Comfort Foods and Win

We're partway through our current contest for tickets to Joy of Feeding, a fundraising event for UBC Farm coming up on June 30 (which we're very pleased to be sponsoring). In its third year, this great event focuses on the joy of sharing a tasty, healthy meal with family, friends... and sometimes, perfect strangers.

To be eligible to win one of three pairs of tickets, we've asked readers to tell us what their favourite family comfort food is. It could be the dish they associate with their upbringing, or the dish that's becoming a family classic now. One that embodies your culture or ethnic heritage, or just the food you've come to adopt as your own.

And for those feeling truly keen, you can actually upload a recipe. That makes you eligible for a package of four tickets (value of $200), the glory of having your recipe published on The Tyee, and being acknowledged at the event by one of the judges. The judges are Meeru Dhalwala of Vij's (co-founder of Joy of Feeding), Mary Mackay of Terra Breads, and Julian Bond of the Pacific Institute for the Culinary Arts. Their criteria for prize-winner? Simple: best blend of "interesting" and "practical" for regular home cooking.

Want to get a flavour for what Joy of Feeding is all about? Here's a video from last year's event at UBC Farm.

A taste of reader comfort foods

Here is just a tiny sample from the more than 160 entries so far. Read them all and then go to our contest page to feed us your quick submission. Tell us yours before June 14 to win. If you're hungry right now, be forewarned. Reading everyone's submissions will just make you hungrier.

"Sunday lunch during the summer, growing up in the Kootenays with 4 siblings: Roast chicken, garden vegetables (whatever in season) like peas, corn, carrots. Simple tossed salad with vinaigrette. For dessert: home baking and/or peaches with cream!"

"Rouladen with mashed potatoes and gravy. This became the requested 'birthday' meal for nearly every one."

"My favorite comfort meal is a homemade bowl of congee soup with pork and an egg. My grandmother used to make this for me when I was sick, and whenever I visit Hong Kong we have it for breakfast. This dish is simple but difficult to do right. It can also easily be switched up with other ingredients including including fish, beef, or pickled vegetables. It's a classic that will always remind me of home."

"Salvadoran Pupusas! With salsa and curtido."

"Chicken Adobo (sometimes pork adobo too!)"

"My mother's soup, right up to this day. It always incorporates stock from the bones of previous meals, tomatoes, herbs, and spices -- fresh or dried, depending on the season, whatever other vegetables are on hand, and often, rice, noodles, or barley. My sister always preferred noodles in the soup, while I preferred rice, so for long time, both were usually in the mix. No matter what the differences in ingredients, each batch of soup always tastes like her soup. My efforts to recreate the soup sometimes come close, but they're never as good as the real thing. I've included my take on another of my favourite comfort foods below, for the grand prize entry. I've also shared it on my blog."

"Curry Chicken, Rice and Peas and Fried Plaintain. As a child, my mother would make these dishes and I would be responsible for the Fried Plaintain. I loved being in the kitchen with my mother and enjoyed the meal topped off with my grandmother's homemade pepper sauce!!"

"GROUND BEEF IN GRAVY OVER MASHED POTATOES AND PEAS. Our mum was a city girl from London, England who wasn't allowed in the kitchen as a child, so after moving to Canada, marrying a beef farmer and having 4 boys, she had to learn how to prepare tasty filling meals fast! I always knew we all loved Mum's ground beef in gravy over mashed potatoes and peas, but I did not realize how much until a few years ago when one of my sister-in-laws told me that after years of marriage and oodles of attempts, she still had not won my youngest brother over with her interpretation of our mum's famed comfort meal. He would always tell her it was really good, but just not the same. Sadly, our mum passed away several years ago before any of us learned what her secret was to making it a favourite family comfort meal. But I reckon, even if she had told us her secret, it still would not be the same as Mum preparing it herself...in that same saucepan as she did for so many years...so we must continue to comfort ourselves savouring the memory."

"Perogies. Especially at Christmas, when we make poppy seed perogies. Nothing better."

"Tostadas with Guacamole Low Fat (non-fried) Tostadas Spread tortillas out on oven racks into an oven preheated to about 200F. Once the tortillas get leathery, flip them or they will curl up. Tortillas will darken a bit and become crispy when done. Guacamole Pit and scrap out the flesh of 10-12 avocados. Immediately squeeze the juice of 2-3 large limes onto the avocados and mash until smooth. Put 3 advocato seeds into the mixture. People say it helps to keep the guacamole from turning brown quickly. Finely chop up half of a sweet white onion and one large bunch of cilantro and add to avocado and lime juice mash. Lastly finely chop up 2-4 Serrano peppers. You may want to use gloves or protect your hands with a plastic bag. Add the chop Serrano and sea salt to taste. Let this Guacamole mixture sit for 30 minutes in the fridge for the flavors to combine. Spread the guacamole onto your cooled tostadas and enjoy with an ice cold beer."

"Butter chicken with naan... nothing beats it!"

"My favourite comfort food is my grandma's 'ginger and chicken.' It's a simple stew of browned onions and chicken, water, soy sauce, lots of fresh grated ginger, pineapple, mushrooms and sometimes water chestnuts -- all without measurement. I think she created it from her years growing up in Maui and the pineapple and the Chinese influence made the stew feel exotic. It was an inexpensive meal that could be put together quickly and served over rice could feed many. It comforted me as a child and still now, as an adult, during difficult times, I ask my mom to make it."

"Guinness stew -1 can diced tomatoes -3 roma tomatoes -celery -carrots -mushrooms -beef cubes -1-2 cans of Guinness (Kilkenny or any dark stout works) -beef stock -bay leaf -pepper -salt -cumin -garlic -onions brown beef, with sliced garlic and onions. throw everything into slow cooker or giant pot. let cook for at least 3 hrs (longer the better). awesome!"

"Well it used to be a New England Dinner of ham, cabbage, potatoes and carrots, cooked in a pressure cooker. This was often our Sunday dinner when I was growing up in a small town in NE CT. My mom, a single parent, had to make the food and dollar stretch and this was an economical and very satisfying meal. I can still smell the cooking. Nowadays, I rarely eat red meat. I'd say my favourite comfort meal is a hearty super grain bread, toasted, slathered with almond butter, maybe a slice of white cheese, eaten late at night with tea."

"As a child, one of my mother's classics stands out as pure comfort, the Linus blanket of the gastronomique: her exquisite potato pancakes. They were simple, eschewing onions and other additions. These delectable morsels were served Friday evenings, as they were sploshed with garlic butter (the butter was home-made, and the garlic was home-grown, as were the potatoes), and Saturdays were mornings spent doing farm clean-up chores so the garlic would not threaten socializing. I would eat until it was impossible to eat more."

"As a child my family's comfort meal was minestrone. It was our main meal in the cold winter nights in the North of Italy. Made of chopped fresh vegetables, it was much appreciated by adults and children as well."

"When I was growing up, any time there was an especially cold, damp day -- and I grew up here, so those days were numerous -- my Filipino mother would make the ultimate Filipino comfort food, Arroz Caldo. It's nothing but rice, onions, garlic, ginger and chicken simmered until it made a congee so thick it stuck to your ribs. It is still my favourite comfort food and I still associate it with cold, wet days."

"Satay with sambal sauce Laksa Noodle Soup (Malaysian) Mangosteen fruit Chendol drink/dessert."

"My mom's fruit-filled pierogy, Polish-style -- blueberry is very good; plum is divine! Top with sour cream or creamy plain yogurt. Sweet comfort indeed."

"Char Kway Teow -- done Malaysian Hawker street-style with wide rice noodles, bean sprouts, onions, scrambled egg and prawns all stirfried then dressed with a salty-sweet thick soy sauce, plenty of garlic and a squeeze of lime juice. Heaven! You must use very fresh ingredients and a very hot wok for this ultimate comfort food."

"There are so many delicious Ecuadorian dishes, but as far as comfort is concerned this one tops my list Seco de Chivo... prepared by my mother of course. My mom used lamb and a tomato paste to substitute for goat and tomatillo which can be near impossible to get in Canada. Cloves are the dominant seasoning. Strangely there is an Indian goat stew that tastes pretty similar but without the yellow rice and avocado it is just not the same. I have never executed this recipe myself because it is for feeding a big family."

"This is a hard one... as a child, my mom would make toasted buckwheat groats with melted cheese on top. People think it sounds weird, but now my kids love it too. My other favourite would be Tom Kah Gah soup -- Thai coconut lime soup with chicken and mushrooms. Yum!"

"Macaroni and cheese! (made with carrots and cauliflower). Make sauce first 2 tbsp butter, 2 olive oil, 3 tbsp flour, cook together until it smells like shortbread cookies! slowly add 1 cup warm milk, 3/4 cup carrot puree, 1 cup extra old cheddar cheese. Stir pretty much constantly until smooth. Remove from heat. Make 1 box macaroni and add the florets of a head of cauliflower when there is approx 3 minutes left in cooking of the pasta. Drain and mix in sauce. Either heat and serve or put in casserole, top with bread crumbs and 1/4 cup asiago on top. Bake until heated through and top is melted and crispy. (approx 30 minutes) at 350."

"Chicken curry with moong dahl, imli chutney, and fresh tomato chutney, all on top of parboiled rice."

"My homemade vegetable lentil stoup (soup that's like stew) with either curry or Moroccan spices. There isn't a recipe because whatever is leftover in the fridge for veggies at the end of the week goes into it, along with the stuff that's actually supposed to go in it. Then I think about the spices I feel like at that time and add those variations until I get what I want. We haven't had to incorporate too many of my experiments into the dogs' food!"

Ready to pen your own? It's quick and easy, but do it before Friday June 14 for your chance to with Joy of Feeding tickets.