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And then there are days you just don’t want to cook:  you wake up too early, and there are too many early morning phone calls, some of them even from people not related to you. That’s when it’s time for some comfort food.  (So, of course, it involves bacon.)

Ingredients:

10-15 white or yellow potatoes, enough to fill 1/2 of a four quart crock pot

1/2 of a large white onion or 1 smaller white onion

1/2 small cabbage

7 pieces of bacon

salt

pepper

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk or real milk

Kitchen apparati:

crock pot

sturdy mixing bowl

heavy metal spoon–for potato mashing

slotted spoon

cutting knife

microwave

Directions:

Scrub the potatoes under cold water at 7:00 a.m. or earlier.  Wake up a little before you get out the knife.  Without peeling the potatoes, cut them into thick slices.  Put the potatoes in the crock pot.  Cut half of an onion, and shred small pieces of it into the crock pot on top of the potatoes.  Fill the pot with enough water to cover, turn the heat to low, and put on the lid.  Walk away for eight to ten hours.

(Don’t put the cabbage in with everything else.  It will make the entire dish too “cabbagey”; if you add the cabbage early, you’ll be having Frank McCourt nightmares about cabbage soup again.)

Go to work, slay the dragons, and come back to a house that smells like onion and potato stew.  Be impressed at your own cooking skills again.

Take the small cabbage out of the refrigerator and cut half of it into thin slices.  Put the cabbage on top of the cooked onion and potatoes.  Add more water.  Turn the crock to high.  Leave for two hours.  Cook the bacon in the microwave according to the package directions if it’s not already cooked.  Let the bacon cool.  Take all of the ingredients out with a slotted spoon, draining them as you go.  In a sturdy mixing bowl, mash the potatoes with a heavy spoon.  Add 1/2 cup butter and 1/2 cup milk.  Tear the bacon into small pieces and mix and mash one more time.  Sprinkle in salt–sea salt if you really want to be authentic.

Cost:  About $6.00 to feed the entire MacDonald clan.  The Campbells don’t get any.

Soundtrack:  Isla St. Claire-Glencoe