Savor California-The online showcase for gourmet specialty foods and beverages from California.

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"Comfort food"

Staying home with a group of good friends, or a good book, movie or television show is the perfect opportunity for enjoying these delicious ideas from Savor California companies.

Starting with brunch

On a sleep-in Saturday morning, you can choose pancakes, crepes or scones (above), using mixes from Bo's Best Pancake Mixes. Then top them with one of Bo's butter mixes or flavored sugars.

Oat Cuisine takes granola to a new, very gourmet, level, with Original (above), Cranberry, Ginger-Pecan, and Oil Free. Alterntively, you can snack on these treats all day long.

The aroma of baking Fig-Orange Muffins (above), using Mission or Calimyrna figs from Valley Fig Growers, will get any lazybones out of bed every time.

Use Back to the Roots Mushroom Kit to grow your own oyster mushrooms. Then make this nutritious and lovely breadkfast: Yucca Flower, Mushroom, and Feta Frittata.

Mug of comfort

There are a wild variety of beverages you can make with Sonoma Syrup Co.'s simple syrups, including Bittersweet Mocha (above).

If you can resist eating all your Amella Caramels Milk Chocolate Agave Caramels (dipped in the Grey Sea Salt included in each box) right out of the box, you can make Sea Salt Hot Chocolate (above).

Just a little kick

These first courses each have a little spicy kick to warm you up.

Split Pea Soup (above) gets its heat from Earl's Gone Wild's California Spice. Great with beer!

Expanding your repertoire of recipes using California Endive Farms can pay off with Potato and Endive Soup.

Another tasty way to use endive is an appetizer created by Ojai Jelly: Spicy Apricot Boats, which uses their Ojai Habanero Jelly.

Warming you up

Thanks to Zoomie Station. for this recipe for Pasta with Halibut and Sausage (below), which uses Sartain's Menu The Sauce. So hearty and so good.

Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese suggests their recipe for a completely different pasta dish: Butternut Squash, Spinach and Rosemary Pasta with Original Blue.

Open up a jar of tradition, with Fabrique D�lices's Cassoulet Toulousain, which combines pork and duck sausage as well as duck confit, similar to the classic Cassoulet of Toulouse. Just heat and serve.

The rich flavors of sundried tomatoes from Mooney Farms bring summer into winter in Italian Stuffed Eggplant (below).

The absolutely most perfect Creamed Corn comes from The Perfect Bite Co. (below). Keep a package in your freezer to cheer up any winter menu.

Brighten up Sweet Potato Sticks by dipping them in sea salt and Auntie Si's Lemongrass Vinegar.

Desserts

Top left:
For an extraordinary cheesecake, you need an extraordinary crust. Crushed Alice's Stick Cookies do the trick and raspberries top it off in this recipe for Cream Cheese Pie with Alice�s Stick Cookie Crust.

Top right:
Bread pudding is a classic winter dessert, and Valley Fig Growers give it a California twist: Chocolate Fig Bread Pudding. For another fig-lover's dessert, try Pear Cobbler with Lemon-Infused Figs.

Lower left:
Elaine�s Euphoria Cake is, fittingly enough, made with Elaine's Toffee. You're just going to have to resist the temptation to eat the entire contents of the bag before you get the cake made.

Lower right:
Crepe mix from Bo's Best Pancake Mixes will make perfectly thin "wraps" for fruit, chocolate curls, and, of course, whipped cream.

Other dessert ideas:
Apple Apricot Cake is made with dried Blenheim apricots from B & R Farms.

I decided to dress up one of my standby deserts and made Baked Apples with Caramel Drizzle, using CC Made's Sel Gris (Grey Sea Salt) Caramel Sauce. Next time, I'll use their Dark Chocolate Caramel Sauce!