What Was Cooking on New Year's Day?

While some of the menu for New Year's Day at our house may change from year to year, there are always collards in the pot and black-eyed peas. 

But before I get to that meal, let me wish everyone a very happy and healthy 2019! It is so very kind of you to visit here at this odd little duck of a blog where I am the only one quacking away. 

While I love blogging at Dewena's Window where friends drop by to carry on two-way conversations, Across the Way is a place where I can write more often of the little moments in my life that I don't want to let slip away.  

So thank you so much for continuing to come here to Across the Way! I hope that your New Year's Eve was pleasant and that 2019 presents you with opportunities for meaningful work and relationships and growth of spirit.

RH and I enjoyed a quiet New Year's Eve at home with BreeBree and James Mason and had one of the most comforting soups in my repertoire for an early supper, Cook's Illustrated Farmhouse Vegetable & Barley Soup.

Recipe here! I tried to link directly to the magazine's recipe that I use but evidently you have to be a member to do that and who needs another password to keep up with, right? But I found the same recipe that you can print out. 

On New Year's Day morning, RH started cooking pork chops in his favorite black iron skillet. 

With it we allowed ourselves a special treat that before we've only made when family was with us, Silver Palates Fabulous Croissant French Toast. I found a recipe link for you that the Chicago Tribune had for it in a column they did back in 1985, here.

I'd been saving these croissants that were on sale at the deli after Christmas. I gathered my ingredients while RH was cooking the pork chops.

Why two bowls? One recipe with lactose free milk for RH and half and half for me in the other one--Publix was out of heavy cream the day after Christmas but this was almost as good. And I was out of Triple Sec but substituted Chambord instead.

I set the table with two plates from a stack of old restaurant china I have, The Clock restaurant.

Breakfast was so good! Then we started cooking for an early supper, RH washing the collards and doing the tedious job of cutting the heavy part of the stem out of each leaf while I started the bacon cooking and the onions after the bacon came out of the pan. 

I don't use the hog jowls that most people do here in the South when cooking collards. It was only when I first tried Gourmet magazine's recipe for collards (here) that I discovered I loved collards.

I'd soaked the black-eyed peas overnight and got them going next and then got the small pork loin ready to roast.

I use a recipe from my old Southern Sideboards cookbook for that, a favorite with the excellent introduction by Wyatt Cooper, Anderson Cooper's father.

This is a Junior League cookbook and those are always good. My copy is falling apart, I've used it so much for decades. During this year's holiday season I've made three or four recipes from it. I do add some Boar's Head sauerkraut to this dish the last half hour of cooking.

This was more cooking than I usually do for just the two of us but New Year's Day is special. And it was one of those cloudy days where it was fun to be in the kitchen for hours. And I had this beautiful amaryllis 'Caprice' from White Flower Farm to keep me company. There are four blooms open now but yesterday the first two opened.

Here's a closeup. Red amaryllis are my favorite, double ones at that, but we forgot to bring them in before frost so I was in the mood for a pink one for my kitchen, in the silver golf trophy bucket with moss from our yard tucked around the base.

I sat down to rest after everything was cooking and the dishwasher loaded and caught up with some blog friends. RH got some much needed relaxing done while watching marathon Firefly episodes on television in between checking on his favorite football games.

At last our first supper of 2019 was ready and we sat down to the table and gave thanks for the meal and the blessing of living in our cozy house on Home Hill.

We know not what the future holds in 2019 but we know that the Heavenly Father will be there with us every day and night. And I am always like a child looking forward to Christmas morning on New Year's Day. I am expectantly watching for the gifts that each day will bring.

As Abbie Graham writes about the gifts of a new year, I will watch for "the gift of hours and far-seeing moments, the gift of mornings and evenings, the gift of spring and summer, the gift of autumn and winter."

Happy New Year dear family and friends!

I feel like a farmer.

I know, it's only jalapeños.

One big jalapeño plant and a few pots of herbs.

Not only that, RH is the one who plants them, totes the heavy pots around, and waters them.

But when I go out and clip them,
          bring them in and wash them...

and then mince them...

I feel like a farmer.

I can only imagine the pride I'd feel if I actually grew fields of them. I would if I could because I use them for almost every meal. I'm also excited about the other three pots of peppers I planted. Well, I did choose them and sit the little plants in the pots I wanted RH to plant them in.

One other thing I wish I could grow is baby bok choy. It's so expensive and I dearly love it.

One of the best tips I have for almost any soup is adding chopped baby bok choy only five minutes before serving it.

And have a bowl of chopped scallions, jalapeños and minced herbs ready to garnish each bowl of soup when served.

That's a bowl of soup so good it makes me feel like a chef.

Then if I take time to set a pretty table I feel like...like what?

I don't know, I'm too tired to think straight.

It's hard work being a farmer and a chef and one of those women we know by their first names.

Besides, I'm hungry.

And it all started with jalapeños.

A Rainy Day and Soup

A dark rainy October day like today is nice. And what I want on a rainy day is soup, especially chicken soup. No matter whether it's chicken noodle, chicken and rice, or Silver Palette's Chicken Chili they all start with chicken broth. And the broth starts with a roast chicken. Usually I buy the pack of two organic whole chickens from Costco and follow Pat Conroy's recipe from his The Pat Conroy Cookbook, with a few additions of my own. The other day I only had one chicken and it did get a tad overdone, something Mr. Conroy would deplore. It still tasted pretty good to us and smelled divine roasting away. I realize everyone has a recipe for roast chicken but here's how I do it.

My Roast Chicken, Inspired by Pat Conroy

1. Set whole chicken out of refrigerator 30 minutes before cooking.

2. Turn oven to 375 degrees.

3. Melt 1/2 stick unsalted butter and 1/4 cup olive oil together in small pan over moderate

          heat until foamy, about 3 minutes.

4. Fill cavity of chicken with 1 peeled shallot, 2 garlic cloves, peeled and mashed;

           sprigs of fresh thyme, tarragon or rosemary; 1 teaspoon black peppercorns.

5. Rub chicken with 1/2 lemon and put in cavity.

6. Put other lemon half and an extra one in pan with extra garlic cloves, peeled.

7. Baste chicken with the butter-olive mixture.

8. Dust with paprika, salt and fresh ground black pepper.

9. Add 2 strips of bacon across top.

10. Roast at 375 degrees for 1 1/2 hours or more till done, legs wiggle, and temperature 

            in thigh is 170 degrees.

You can deglaze the pan with 2 cups chicken broth, salt and pepper, reduce by half and serve over mashed potatoes. But what I do now is save all the drippings, all the bones, skin, fat, carcass and either freeze it or make broth from it the next day. You can't buy chicken broth as rich and tasty as the broth made from this. I never stir stock. Why? I don't know, but Pat Conroy says not to so I don't. And I freeze it in several containers to save for soup for a rainy day.

Chicken Stock

Put all of the drippings, skin, fat and bones from the roast chicken into a stock pot and add a lot of water. Distilled water makes the clearest broth if you happen to have it. Add a couple of onions, peeled and halved, 3 or 4 carrots peeled and halved, 3 or 4 celery stalks cut in half, hopefully with lots of leaves. Any fresh herbs like parsley or thyme, tossing in any herb stems you've saved recently too. Add 4 bay leaves, 1 tablespoon of herbs de Provence, a dozen whole cloves, 1 tablespoon dark soy sauce, one garlic head cut in half and unpeeled. Two teaspoons sea salt.

I let this simmer for hours, cool, strain, refrigerate or freeze for all kinds of soups but especially chicken soup. This time I added barley to the chicken soup instead of rice or noodles. More fiber there.

Know what's not bad at all with soup on a rainy day? Good, creamy pimento cheese!

Pimento cheese is something else that everyone has a favorite recipe for, but I buy good mild cheddar and sharp cheddar. I used to stir in a tub of soft cream cheese but am now leaving it out and cutting way back on mayonnaise. I have been known to add extras such as jalapeños, hot sauce, olive juice but one thing I always do that I've never heard of anyone else doing is to puree the pimento before adding. Son Zack would not eat it with pimentos when he was growing up, and I hated it when a piece of pimento seemed to get caught in the roof of the mouth so I started pureeing it. I mean to a liquid. I love it this way and it does give it a pretty color too.

Diet or no diet, in the South sometimes you just gotta have pimento cheese. Stuffing it in celery stalks helps keep it a little more healthy. So does sending most of it to your sons for their lunches. 

I love a rainy day and soup...and pimento cheese.

Serendipity

Richardson Wright, editor-in-chief of House & Garden from 1914 to 1946, wrote this:

"Here is a nice word that collectors will enjoy--Serendipity. It was coined by Horace Walpole out of the fairy tale, 'The Three Princes of Serendip,' the heroes of which were always making discoveries by accident. And that is its meaning--the faculty of making happy and unexpected discoveries by accident. When you wander into an antique shop in search of a pewter candlestick and find a unique piece of Irish glass for next to nothing, you are blessed with Serendipity."

I felt blessed with Serendipity one day last spring when R.H. and I had an hour to spare before going to a birthday party in a town near us and dropped into the local Goodwill. On the bottom shelf in the dish section, pushed to the back, were two stacks of luncheon plates taped together.

I loved the hand painted look of them and put them in our basket after turning one stack over to look at the back. It read "Martres" and "France" and were 50 cents apiece!

Once home I searched online and found only two like them, in Belgium for about $14 each. Not exactly diamonds and rubies but nevertheless, it was Serendipity.

I almost felt like Serendipity had blessed me again when I went outside to look for something to make a centerpiece for the table and found these few blossoms on one side of the hydrangea bush, the other side turned brown.

And old-fashioned bouquet for an old square blue Mason jar.

These plates were just right for chicken salad. The well loved and much missed novelist, Laurie Colwin, wrote: "Chicken salad has a certain glamour about it. Like the little black dress it is chic and adaptable and can be taken anywhere. You can dress it down and feed it to a child, or dress it up and serve it at a dinner party. You can accessorize it in an interesting way and astonish your friends at lunch."

Everyone has a favorite recipe for chicken salad. I started with the Barefoot Contessa's recipe and then changed it to include green apple slivers after tasting the delicious chicken salad at the Storie Street Grille in Blowing Rock, North Carolina [here].

I also made one of my favorite soups from Lee Bailey's Soup Meals with leeks, celery, onions and shallots. If you love soups you won't go wrong looking for Mr. Bailey's soup cookbook on used book sites. The recipe for Carrot-Dill Soup I made last winter [here] is also in this book.

Since I can't go to Serendipity in New York for this (at $25,000.00)....

[here]

I will go to Goodwill and hope for Serendipity. Where have you found Serendipity?

Soup & Salad Night

Have you ever tried Sparrow Lane Vinegars? They are delicious! We soon used up a bottle of their Cabernet Sauvignon Vinegar in our favorite vinaigrette and could not find more anywhere. We ordered some direct from Sparrow Lane along with several other of their varieties, wondering how well glass bottles of vinegar would ship. They arrived safely due to this superior packaging:

Aren't they pretty all lined up here? (And no, they don't sell the pickled peppers. That's how we recycled the empty cabernet bottle!)

Enclosed with our shipment was a recipe page, and we've made one of their salad recipes three times now. It features their D'Anjou Pear Vinegar that smells heavenly. They call it Summer Salad but we think it should be named Fall & Winter Salad. Here is the recipe:

Sparrow Lane Summer Salad [that we call Fall & Winter Salad]

1 large red apple, sliced thinly

1 large pear, sliced thinly

1 large orange, peeled and sliced

1/3 cup Sparrow Lane Extra Virgin Olive Oil

3 tablespoons Sparrow Lane D'Anjou Pear Vinegar

1 tablespoon honey

1/2 cup chopped pecans [I saute them whole and sprinkle with sea salt]

lettuce leaves

In a large bowl, combine sliced fruit [I arrange them on top of the lettuce instead of combining them]. In a small bowl, combine oil, vinegar, and honey; blend well. Pour oil mixture over the fruit, tossing to coat well. Arrange fruit on 6 lettuce lined salad dishes; sprinkle each with a heaping teaspoon of chopped nuts. Serves 6.

Perfect with this salad is Lee Bailey's Carrot and Dill Soup. I double this recipe and freeze half for later. And please use fresh dill in the soup, not dried. It makes all the difference in the world.

Lee Bailey's Carrot and Dill Soup

The combination of carrots and dill is a marriage made in heaven. Add as much dill as you like.

2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) unsalted butter

6 ounces onion, coarsely chopped

1 3/4 pounds carrots (weight after removing tops)

3/4 pound sweet potato

1/2 pound baking potato

5 cups rich chicken stock

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

Scant 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground white pepper

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

2 generous tablespoons finely chopped fresh dill

[I add a pinch of mace also]

Sour cream, creme fraiche, or yogurt 

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Melt butter in a medium skillet and saute onion until light golden and just beginning to brown.

Carefully scrub carrots and cut into rings, unpeeled. [I admit that I peeled them.]

Steam until soft.

Meanwhile, place sweet and white potatoes in oven and bake until soft, about 1 hour.

Scrape sauteed onion into a food processor, deglaze pan with a little of the chicken stock and add this to the onion. [I just use a hand blender for this job.] Puree until thoroughly mixed and very fine. 

Pour mixture into a saucepan, then add the dill and chicken stock. 

Simmer over very low heat for about 15 minutes. 

Soup may be thinned with additional stock, milk, or cream.

Correct seasoning, and serve warm with a dollop of sour cream, yogurt, or creme fraiche on top.

Serves  6 to 8.

To go with this soup and salad supper we had tasty chewy Labriola Pretzel Slider Buns.