Do you have a favorite meal that just tastes better when your mom makes it? Mine is chicken enchiladas.

Amid a sea of mediocrity, her recipe is a shining beacon of simple perfection that has ruined every other enchilada in the world for me, restaurant or otherwise. There’s a lot of nonsense out there that might suggest otherwise, but as far as I’m concerned, there’s one right way to make enchiladas. This is it.

I ended last weekend feeling fairly under the weather. Not really certifiably sick, just groggy, exhausted, and at odds with the world. My mom would call it “low biorhythms,” and I knew I needed to do something about it. All I could think of was to make chicken noodle soup. My plan was to swing by the grocery store on the way home from work, pick up everything I thought I might need for chicken soup, then find a recipe to work with once I got home. It ended up working out pretty much perfectly.

The weather around here lately has been chronicles of ridiculous. May Gray and June Gloom are one thing, but dark days in July (in California no less!) are utterly intolerable unless you are down for curling up on the couch with a movie and a mug of something warm and hearty and spicy. Of course, that’s a scenario for which I am always down.

There is no reason in the world to not like lasagna. It’s a gooey, bubbly, chunky slice of piping hot comfort food heaven. Thanks to recent breakthroughs in alterna-cheese technology, even vegans and the lactose intolerant can get on board. Once scientists find a cure for tomato allergies, no one in the world will have an excuse.