New Year, New Blog, New Ways

Organic, Local, Seasonal

 Organic produce is becoming one of the most important ways to protect your health. Eating right is taking on a new meaning; it doesn’t come in a box anymore!  Doctors are prescribing organic produce instead of drugs! What’s going on?

Let’s take a look at all the ways we can eat and enjoy cooking clean, natural food….WITHOUT much fuss. That’s always the catch, people think it’s hard to eat well (not out of a box or at a fast food place) and still enjoy life and get everything done. I think we can do it…I think its well worth it…and I want to explore why we should do it and how we can do it.

To start off the year right let’s cook black-eyed peas (not seasonal right now but…). I am not a born and raised southerner but I love this tradition. I am posting a recipe for Hoppin’ John Soup, not the traditional black-eyed pea recipe, but soup is so good in the winter and usually lasts for more than one meal. This one has all the traditional components for good luck and prosperity throughout the year, back-eyed peas (the coins that swell with prosperity), collards (the paper money), and let’s serve it with corn bread (the gold). “Let’s eat poor on New Year’s and eat fat the rest of the year.” I hope this old southern saying proves true for everyone. Happy New Year, now let’s cook…

I am using organic carrots, celery, and onion, use what you can. I am posting the original recipe from the Saveur website and a few changes I made. I think you will have many of these ingredients on hand.

1 lb. of dried Black-eyed Peas- picked over, rinsed, and soaked overnight

1 smoked ham bone or 2 ham hocks or smoked turkey legs

¼ cup of olive oil (I used less)

½ cup of cooked ham- chopped

¼ tsp of red pepper flakes (I left this out the jalapeno was enough for me)

2 garlic cloves (more is good too)

1 jalapeno- seeded, and chopped fine

1 large carrot - chopped (I like 2)

1 celery rib- chopped (I use 2)

Bay leaf (I use 3, one when cooking the beans, 2 in the soup pot)

1 lb. collards- washed and stripped of ribs- roughly chopped

2 tbsp. apple cider vinegar

Kosher salt and pepper to taste

5 cups of cooked rice (I used brown)

Tomatoes and scallion to garnish- chopped

In a large pot simmer the black eyed peas in about 8 cups water with a bay leaf and ham bone, about 30 -40 minutes until tender. Skimming the foam from the top as needed.

While that’s cooking chop the garlic, carrots, celery, onion, and jalapeno. All this goes in together so put it all in one bowl. Chop the collards keep to the side. Chop the ham keep separate.

Drain the peas reserving 1 cup of the cooking liquid and ham bone, set aside.

Heat a large stock pot; add oil and sauté the onions, garlic, carrots, celery, bay leaves and jalapeno until just tender. Add the reserved liquid , pepper flakes if using,  11 cups of water or chicken broth, (I used water and found it needed a little more flavor so I had to use a small amount of bouillon. Next time I will use broth or half broth half water) and the collards. Bring to a boil and simmer until the collards are tender about 1 hour, add ham about 10 minutes before it’s finished. Remove bone and bay leaves, season with salt and pepper to taste and add the vinegar. The vinegar adds a lot to the soup. Serve over the rice and garnish with scallions and tomatoes. Enjoy and serve with corn bread we all need a little gold.