Today, I made some comfort food.

Beets are such a simple food item. Yet, here in Japan, I've found that they can be very difficult to find. Sure, at some specialty shops you can sometimes find canned beets, but fresh beets are a rarity.

I've grown some beets in the past, but my crop was never very successful. Still, I enjoyed what I had and made do whenever possible.

Today at a farmer's market I found a few packages of fresh beets. Not only that, but the greens were still attached. I bought 3 of the 4 packages there, leaving one package for some other lucky shopper. The beets themselves were not very big, but the leaves looked wonderful.

I pickled the beets, boiled up the stems and will enjoy them over the next few days, but the leaves were the stars today.

Perhaps it comes from my Ukrainian background of wanting to be frugal and so using as much as possible of things from the garden. My mother would make this recipe and simple though it is, there is also some level of heavenly food within this recipe.

The recipe is basically leaves, dough, salt and pepper, some cream and some green onions. Simple, yet, but simple, no.

Of the 2 trays baked, 95% of one tray disappeared quickly at dinner. We shelved our original dinner plans and had these buns with soup for dinner. The second tray has been frozen for another lucky day.

It's nice to make comfort food from time to time. What's one of your comfort foods?