Mess of Greens

full bellies | warm welcomes

Spicy

Lucky Soup with Black Eyed Peas, Greens, and Bacon

by Leave a Comment

 
By now, y’all know that I’m not going to let a New Year’s Day pass without eating Black eyed peas and greens in SOME form or fashion for luck and money in the New Year… I’ve made pickled peas, black eyed pea hummus, and this year, I combined the two good-luck foods with pork (a German good-luck food) into a spicy, warm soup. I had some friend over…one of whom asked, “wait, what’s the deal with this soup? is it really eaten for luck?”
This gave me the chance to explain what little I know about the peas… but thankfully I’d read this post about the history beforehand so I knew a little more than past years.
In short, the peas are tied to southern history… they were introduced to the south from West or North Africa and are an ancient food eaten on that continent and also across Asia. Either way you tell it, eating BEP on New Year’s Day dates back to the Civil War. Black eyed peas are undoubtedly an important ingredient in some soul-food dishes, so while there are multiple stories about WHY we eat the peas (from the White Southern Community AND the African American Southern community) exist, I think that the history of BEP as a soul-food staple gives credence to that legend. The way the history goes, the only thing many slaves had to eat on the first day of January were these peas because they were one of the few crops left in the winter fields since the Union armies and Slave-owners thought of them as livestock feed. That day in 1863,  the Emancipation Proclamation was signed, outlawing slavery and these peas were consumed. From then on, they’ve been considered good luck for the future.
Thinking that BEPs are tied not only to good luck but also to a major milestone for freedom and justice in our country makes me even more committed to eating them and looking ahead on the year and what it can bring! Read on for yet another way to have your luck (and for a generally warm, hearty soup for winter time!)
Lucky Soup
What you need:
1 bag  of dried black eyed peas soaked overnight (or 2-3 cans)
4-6 Cups of washed and chopped greens like turnip or/and kale
one jalepeno, diced
2 celery ribs, diced
1 green pepper, diced
4 garlic cloves, minced
3-5 strips of bacon
2 cans of diced tomatoes
2 tablespoons of tomato paste
salt, pepper
1 /2 Tablespoon of ground thyme
1 teaspoon of red pepper flakes
Optional: A splash or two of red wine or balsamic vinegar

 

What to Do:
If you’re using dried black eyed peas, the first step begins the night before you plan to make the soup…dump the peas out and sift through them for any beans that have been eaten through or are a darker or redder brown… i don’t think they’ll hurt you  but it’s better to get rid of them in the beginning. Once that’s done, rinse them in a collander and then soak the dried peas in enough water to cover them and then a little bit more. The peas will soak up the water and hydrate, making them soft enough to cook and eat. If you use canned or frozen peas you can skip both of these first steps… and if you forget (heaven forbid!) to overnight soak your peas, then you can do a “quick soak” by putting them in a pot of salted, boiling water for 5-10 minutes. Honestly, I worried that I hadn’t used enough water in my overnight soak, so I did about a 2 minute boil of the peas anyway… the “quick soak” method doesn’t really hurt anything, BUT, beware, it does mean that you’ll end up with more half-peas or peas without the thin casing that holds the two halved together since the boiling water tends to rub that off more easily.
Once your peas are softened or softening, it’s time to cook the bacon! Pork has some sort of lucky significance for Germans, plus bacon just goes SO WELL with peas and turnip greens that it makes sense that we’d cook our veggies in all that flavor. Put the bacon in your pot and cook until brown…
While that’s happening, take the time to dice up your vegetables. Celery, onion, garlic, green bell pepper, and jalepeno pepper were what I used, but you could substitute red bell pepper and chipotle pepper if you wanted a litte bit different look and flavor here..

TIP:  did you know that whole jalepeno peppers freeze really well? If your garden grows more than you can handle, or you just accidentally buy too many at the store, you can drop them in a plastic bag and freeze them until you need them! These came from my aunt’s garden, and thanks to her I have all the peppers I need for a year!

 

Ok, so your veggies are chopped and your bacon has crisped in the pot. Take the bacon out and put it on a paper towel to cool for a bit. Then, dump in your onions into the bacon grease in the bottom of your pot and cook until their translucent.

Add in the garlic and cook briefly until tender, then add in the other diced vegetables. Stir them and cook them until they are a little tender and add in your salt, pepper, thyme, and red pepper flakes. (I gave my approximate seasoning measures above, but I was being conservative this time. feel free to liberally season this soup to your liking!)

Add in your peas, your canned tomatoes and tomato paste.

While that’s all simmering a bit, you’ll want to prepare your greens if you haven’t already.

TIP: I like to clean mine ahead of time and then store them after rinsing them and pulling the leaves off of the stalks (because those kale and turnip green stalks can be TOUGH) in a damp paper towel in a large zip-lock bag. This keeps the greens from wilting and can keep greens (and lettuces, too) fresh for nearly a week. If you haven’t prepped your greens in advance, rinse them thoroughly and pull the leaves from the stalk, then chop or rip up the greens into smaller pieces.

Dump those into the pot (and if you’re adding vinegar or wine, now is the time to do it) and stir around until everything’s all mixed together and let simmer on low for at least one hour so all the flavors mix together. I cooked mine for about 1.5 hours, then let it sit for another 2 hours, then reheated it and tasted for salt and pepper.

 

Serve it with bread and a side salad and you’ve got LUCK for the whole year! Happy new Year!

Blackened Catfish and Spicy Pinapple Salsa

by 1 Comment

 
 It’s spring time, which means that Boone and I try to eat as much fish and fruit as possible…also, on springtime Sunday afternoons, all I want is a homemade frozen margarita for some reason, and spicy food goes just great with that.Plus, when we went down to the Fla Keys last fall I think every single meal I had something blackened, so it was time to try our hand at that. On top of that, since I’m back on the weight watchers wagon (whooo!!! or booo! depending on who you ask…) and since we may or may not have eaten chinese food on Saturday night, we wanted something light.You may have seen the catfish tacos that I posted last year, and this is a similar idea with different flavors. If you liked those, read on for your own spring time blackened catfish feast.
 
What you need for the catfish
a cast iron skillet
4 catfish fillets
4 sprays cooking spray
For the Rub
 2 1/2 Tablespoons Paprika
2 Tbs Salt
2 T garlic powder
1 T black pepper
1 T cayenne pepper
1 T dried oregano
1 T french poultry seasoning (in place of thyme)
What you need for the salsa
1 can of pinapple rounds (or one fresh pinapple, peeled and cored), diced
1 medium fresh tomato, diced
1/2 red onion, diced
1 jalepeno chile (diced fine)
Juice of 2 fresh limes
salt to taste
we didn’t have any, but I’d also recommend cilantro.

Serve with Greek Yogurt and cilantro!

What to do: 
Start by dicing all of the fruit and the onion and jalepeno and combining in the large bowl.
 
once everything is diced in about the same size pieces, juice the lime and pour it over the fruit. Salt to taste. Let this stand and marinate for at least 30 minutes, if not longer so the flavors meld together and it gets spicy and sweet.
Once that’s ready, start preparing the fish by mixing the spices together to make the rub. Once that’s taken care of, set aside and heat the cast iron skillet on high for  6 minutes. it may smoke, but you need it to be hot enough to blacken…but not hot so hot that it cracks (because you can do that to a skillet, btw).
pat the fillets dry, and then cover them in about 1 tablespoon of rub per fillet. You can use more, but 1 tablespoon does the trick. Once you’re ready to blacken, spray the skillet with cooking spray.

place the catfish in the pan making sure that the fillets don’t touch. If they touch, the meat steams rather than crisps…which just isn’t the same as blackened. Cook for 3-4 minutes on each side, until the fish is firm and flakey… you’ll know it’s ready because there’ll be a nice black crust on the top.

 

VOILA! serve with tortilla chips  or saffron rice and black beans and a dollop of plain greek yogurt on the top for a tropical-ish treat using my favorite southern fish!

 

Dining Out Delta: Juke Joint Crawfish

by Leave a Comment

it’s FINALLY crawfish season here in the ‘Sip, and we’ve been eating the hell out those spicy little things. At festivals on picnic tables, in our own backyard over a washtub, over newspaper on the kitchen counter… wherever we can find some space (and have an opportunity), we’ve been taking full advantage of the time of year. not everybody likes mudbugs (something about looking your dinner square in the face while you peel their shell away makes some folks queasy, I guess..and other people can’t take the spicy slow-burn of the Old Bay, crab boil, and salt that seasons the water) but I can’t get enough of them. I’ve heard that getting them shipped live out of their native lands MS and LA and Texas can cost CRAZY amounts, so it’s probably better to just make a trip down south if you’ve never tried them before.

 

In fact, my most favorite people in the whole world came down last weekend for our favorite Festival of all time.. the Juke Joint Festival in Clarksdale, MS. (That’s a lot of favorites, I know… but truly, I’m not exaggerating!)  Blues music everywhere, local folks, visitors from around the Delta, along with European tourists milling around the downtown, funnel cakes, hot tamales, booths and booths of artists’ wares, and all of the juke joints in town open with great live music… if you’ve not been here for it, you should make a note on your calendar RIGHT NOW for next year’s festival…the 3rd weekend in April.

Anyway, every year we eat crawfish until we burst…. it turns out that 30 pounds of cooked crawfish for 8 people may just have been a few too many, but we sure did make a solid effort to eat them all. Sometimes we get them at the Delta Amusement Cafe (worth it!) but this year we worried they’d run out before we arrived, so we ordered them from a great place down the road from our house… Fratesi’s Grocery. They make them just spicy enough to make your lips tingle, but not spicy enough that you have to stop eating them… perfect.

If you want to cook your own, you’ll either have to buy them at a store (if you live between Texas and Florida) OR, if you live in other parts of the country and are dead set on it, you’ll have to order them, which I’ve heard costs an arm and a leg since you have to order them LIVE. If that’s your lot, I’d recommend just coming down to Juke Joint or making sure to visit deep south in spring time!

We didn’t cook our own this time, but the next time we do, I’ll share the secrets with you! For now, let your mouth water at all the spicy goodness…