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Hoppin’ John and Happy New Year

hoppin-john

Happy New Year! It’s 2014, a new year, and a new start… actually I made some changes before the first day of 2014, but January 1 still feels like a new start anyway. For the first time in years, I stayed up ’til midnight and saw the Times Square ball drop (on TV), and I’m glad for that. The next morning I took a walk to the park and made sprouted spelt pancakes for breakfast, along with coffee and mimosas. Watched the Rose Parade. And later that day I made Hoppin’ John.

Hoppin’ John is known as a traditional Southern New Year’s dish, supposedly one that brings good luck for the year, especially if you eat it with greens (green = the color of money). I’ve read that it has origins with Southern slaves, and—new to me—that it has even deeper origins with the Jewish community, 2,500 years ago. It was first written down in The Carolina Housewife, a cookbook from 1847.  Continue reading “Hoppin’ John and Happy New Year”

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Hellgate CSA Weeks 22 and 23

csa collage week 22

It’s been a while since I posted about our CSA share, and I’ve missed that. We’re really into the fall vegetables and fruit these days – apples and pears especially, plus root vegetables. Week 22 brought us:

1 bunch of kale
1 bulb of celeriac
1 pound winter radishes
1 bunch kohlrabi (though I got two bunches – they weren’t so popular)
3 pounds carrots
1 head lettuce
2 pounds bosc pears
1 pound empire apples
1 pound mutsu apples

I made kale chips out of the kale, seasoned with rosemary herb salt made by my friends at Gardenfreude. The kohlrabi and some of the carrots went into the kimchi I fermented this past week. Loved the apples for snacking. I will make a celeriac remoulade later this week. I love, love, LOVE celeriac, especially in a remoulade. This celery root and apple salad is also delicious.

Continue reading “Hellgate CSA Weeks 22 and 23”

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CSA Bounty – Week One

I’d like to show off what I bring home from the CSA each week, so this is the first post in my CSA Bounty Series.  Mostly eye candy, this is going to be my record of the 2010 Hellgate CSA season.

Our vegetables are organic and the fruit is “ecologically grown”, which means it’s not quite organic, so they do their best to use alternate techniques (like integrated pest management) to control pests, weeds, and fungus.  In NY state, it’s pretty much impossible to grow tree fruit truly organic, due to the overly wet summers.

Strawberries!  One of the best parts of the early CSA season.  They were delicious.  Note that past tense, “were”… these strawberries came from our vegetable farmer, so they were organic.

strawberries

Green leaf lettuce, one of my favorites.  I ate some of it tonight and it was lovely.

lettuce

Tarragon, my new favorite herb.  I use it liberally in chicken salad (I’ll share the recipe sometime soon – it’s fantastic).  This was particularly gorgeous tarragon.

tarragon

Leeks – beautiful (and delicious – I’ve already eaten them).

leeks

Bags of jerusalem artichokes.  Not very photogenic, I’ll admit, but I’m grateful that the farm pre-bagged them for us.

IMG_6255

Gorgeous collard greens.  I didn’t choose these (the choice was these greens or the leeks), but glad I got a shot of them.  I expect they were delicious.

collards

That’s it!  I can’t wait to see what we get in week two…