Blackeyed Peas, Demystified

The back page of each issue of Organic Gardening magazine is given to an article by the magazine's editor, Maria Rodale. Her grandfather J. I. Rodale is widely considered to be the founder of the modern organic gardening movement; gardening and produce are still, after publishing, the family business. Presumably, Maria grew up around a wide variety of vegetables. So I was stunned to read this article, in which she described a vacation to a B&B near Nashville, where she was treated to "something they called peas." These weird little beans didn't resemble any peas she'd ever heard of, so she inquired and got an education on field peas - including the most famous of field peas, the symbol of the South, the blackeyed pea.

The article reminded me of a time two years ago when a friend from New York was visiting us and checked out the pantry as I made dinner. "What's this?" she asked, picking up a jar. "These funny little beans with the spot that looks like an A?"

Until then, I'd assumed that blackeyed peas were on a level with cornbread and ham. Sure, they're Southern, but everyone knows about them, right? Wrong, it turns out! I mentioned them on Twitter not too long ago when someone asked about a healthy standard weeknight supper, and I was asked repeatedly to explain blackeyed peas and how to cook them.

So here it is. Blackeyed peas are pretty hard to screw up, but with a rich, smoky molasses they can be so much more delicious than their humble nature implies. They're packed with protein, calcium, folate, and vitamin A, among other benefits. They're dirt-cheap and store for a very long time, so you can stock up and always have plenty on hand. They bring you luck when eaten on New Year's Day. They don't even need to be pre-soaked. And don't be fooled by Southern stereotypes - blackeyed peas do NOT need pork, or even any meat at all.

And the best part: They're at their best when left alone in a crockpot all day while you go to work. For an easy and nutritious weeknight supper, throw blackeyed peas in the crockpot before you leave in the morning, and then whip up a quick honey cornbread (here's my recipe) when you get home. Collard greens and copper pennies, as in the pic above, are nice but optional!

MOLASSES BLACKEYED PEAS

1 cup dried blackeye peas
4 cups chicken/vegetable broth, water, or a combo
2 cloves minced garlic
¼ cup molasses
2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar or cider vinegar
1 Tbsp toasted sesame oil (see note)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp hot sauce
½ tsp crushed red pepper
½ tsp dried savory or parsley (optional)
¼ tsp ground black pepper

Chopped green onion, to taste

Note: You can use olive oil, but if you have toasted sesame oil, definitely use it here.

Rinse off the blackeyed peas in a strainer. If you see any shriveled-looking or darkened peas (or little pebbles, sometimes it happens), toss them.

Combine everything but the green onion in the crockpot and switch it on. The measurements don't need to be exact. Forget about it for 8-10 hours. Come home and give it a stir, and when the cornbread is ready, dish up those peas and sprinkle green onion on top.

If you're not making any other dishes and this is just a simple blackeyed-peas-and-cornbread dinner, try a pickle and/or some sliced radishes on the side. Raw veggies really sing with this, or sometimes I go the other way and have a few cubes of cheese. Just keep it simple!

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Outta' Town Banana Muffins

(Apologies for the pic - I had coffee on the brain at 5:30 a.m.)

'Tis the season for holiday travel! We got a jump on the season yesterday, when Keith got a quick job in L.A. and I decided to join him just to get out of town for a couple of days. So yesterday we hit the road about 5:45 a.m. and hauled our exhausted selves into Redondo Beach just after 11 p.m. Of course there was a nasty weather system which drifted south along with us, so we spent most of the day wrestling rain, snow, and high winds, and just for good measure another storm blew into Redondo in the wee hours of the morning, waking us up with a chilly bath from the window.

But it's sunny now, and we're well-rested, and we're also well-nourished. We do this road trip thing fairly regularly, and I'm a seasoned road tripper in my own right, having crossed two continents all by my lonesome on several occasions. So I've learned a lot about travel, especially the fact that there is precious little to eat out there by the highway.

Oh sure, there's a fast food joint at every exit, and the gas stations are loaded with candy and chips. But c'mon, when you're spending an entire day with one eye on that swerving semi and the other on that cop in the rearview, you need FOOD. Something that's not going to drop you into a bloated coma ten minutes after you eat it; something that's not going to gas your travel companions out of the car. And even if you're flying (though I can't imagine why you would nowadays), you still need inexpensive fortification to get you through the journey in good health and cheer.

So pack a bag. Yesterday on our trip, I brought some cashews, cheese, sliced carrots and kohlrabi, two refillable water bottles, and a batch of these rich, moist banana muffins. I think I can safely say I'll be bringing these muffins on every trip from now on. They're the perfect road snack - easy to eat one-handed, a little sweet but not sugary, with whole grains to keep you full longer than a sugared white-flour muffin would, a dose of protein from nuts and eggs, and a rich soft texture that makes them feel like a treat. They travel well and don't dry out (actually, they get more moist as they sit).

Bring them on your next road trip, flight, train trip, or walk around the neighborhood. Don't forget the coffee.

OUTTA' TOWN BANANA MUFFINS

2 large bananas, very ripe (soft spots okay!)
1/2 cup pure maple syrup or honey
1/4 cup applesauce
2 eggs
1 Tbsp vanilla
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/4 cup flax meal
1/4 cup ground nuts or nut flour* (see note)
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup dried cranberries, blueberries, strawberries, or raisins

* Note: You can buy almond flour, hazelnut flour, etc. But it's a lot cheaper to just get whatever nuts you like (pecans are cheap) and grind them yourself; they don't have to be as finely ground as a flour, a coarser grind is just fine. Just toss them into the blender or food processor for a minute.

Preheat the oven to 350 F and line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners.

Break up the bananas and toss them in the food processor or blender. Add the maple syrup (or honey), applesauce, eggs, and vanilla; whiz it all up until smooth (a few banana chunks are fine).

In a separate bowl, combine the dry ingredients except for the fruit, and whisk together with a fork until evenly blended. Pour in the wet mixture and stir gently, just until blended - don't overmix. Fold in the dried fruit and spoon into the muffin cups, filling to the top. Bake for 25 minutes or until done. Leave them in the pan to cool on a wire rack, then wrap individually or just throw them all into one gallon-size bag like I did.

These last for a few days outside the fridge, and can also be frozen for later.

Safe travels!

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Biscuits (Gravy Optional)

I've probably mentioned before that Keith and I have a biscuit tradition. Whenever he goes out of town for work, his first morning home again means biscuits and gravy. This has given me plenty of opportunity to perfect my biscuit technique, and I don't mind saying that I make the best biscuits we've ever had.

The gravy varies a bit, but the biscuits don't; once you've perfected a recipe like this one, you don't need to mess with it anymore. Today I had the chanterelle mushroom duxelles that I made on Monday, so I stirred them into my usual and made mushroom gravy. And then, upon discovering that I've never actually shared my recipe here, I decided to go ahead and gift it over.

There are some tricks to perfect biscuits. The big one is the frozen butter - when I first made biscuits I couldn't get that lovely flaky texture until I decided to treat biscuit dough like pie crust, and it worked. Lumps of frozen butter go into the oven solid and then melt as the biscuits bake, creating air pockets and that gorgeous flaky melt-in-your-mouth goodness.

The other trick is to place the biscuits quite close together on the baking sheet or in the pan. This will keep them from spreading outward, and they'll shoot upward instead, getting thick and fluffy like this:



BUTTER BISCUITS
Makes 4-6 biscuits, depending on size.

3/4 cup warm water
1 1/2 tsp sugar
1 heaping tsp yeast
2 cups unbleached white flour
3 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
5 Tbsp frozen butter, divided

Pour warm water (not hot) into a small bowl and add the sugar and yeast. Whisk it up with a fork until the yeast is mostly dissolved, then set in a warm place (such as on top of the stove with the burners off).

In a separate mixing bowl, blend the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside 1 Tbsp of the butter; take the remaining 4 Tbsp and grate it into the bowl with a cheese grater. Use your hand to gently mix the butter into the flour mixture until it's evenly distributed but the butter is still solid and chunky.

By now, the yeast water should have a thick bubbly layer on top. Pour that into the flour-butter mixture, then gently stir it in until the dough gets too thick to stir. Knead it with your hands until it's even and all the flour has been worked in; at first it'll look like too much flour, but as you knead it, the whole thing comes together. Don't knead it for too long, just until the dough holds together and looks even throughout.

Sprinkle a little flour on the counter and run a floured hand over your rolling pin, then roll out the dough to about an inch thick. Cut circles with the top of a glass and put them close together in a cake pan or on a cookie sheet lined with parchment. Roll the scraps together and cut until you only have enough dough left for one biscuit, and then shape that one with your hands. They don't have to look perfect - uneven is okay. (If you have little bits of scraps left over, and you know anyone with chickens, they LOVE biscuit dough.)

Preheat the oven to 450 F and set the biscuit pan on top of the unlit stove. Let the biscuits rest and rise for about 15-20 minutes. It won't look like they're rising much, so don't worry if yours don't double in size like bread does. Just give them the time and then pop them in the oven for 10-12 minutes, until they're golden in color.

Melt the remaining 1 Tbsp butter and brush it over the biscuit tops as soon as they come out of the oven. Serve immediately while they're still hot. Top them with any gravy you like, or go the other way and drizzle them with honey, or spread them with jam. They'll make a great little breakfast sandwich - go all out and stuff a biscuit with fried chicken and honey for a decadent treat!

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Yard Food

I got back from my trip late Wednesday night. Thursday I woke up hungry and went looking for something to eat. The pantry was full of staples - flours, barley, spices, etc. - but there wasn't much for a quick bite.

So I went out to the yard.

I gathered up several eggs, picked a bunch of greens, discovered that OH HAPPY DAY a few tomatoes are finally ripening, and I collected a few pounds of white pattypan squashes. Once I had it all inside, I decided to save the squashes, since I found a few slices of wholegrain bread.

Behold my Backyard Sammy: Eggs scrambled with hot sauce and Dijon mustard, on toasted wholegrain bread, with fresh-picked tomato, arugula, and two kinds of sorrel. I can't even tell you how delicious it was. And I didn't have to go far to the store.

That's the most satisfying thing about yard food. It's always there, cheaper and far more tasty than you could get if you schlepped it through the checkout lane. And it's always seasoned with that savory satisfaction that comes from self-sustainability.

Desperately Seeking Summer

The headlines are all over the news here in Oregon: According to the National Weather Service, summer has possibly been cancelled for this year. On account of rain, I suppose. A meteorologist here in Portland put it well...

"If you look at a national temperature map, it's almost like we have become a separate continent," said Hill, "because literally everybody else in the lower United States is in a different season than we are. I mean, it really is just absolutely nuts!"

He's not wrong. My family back in the Mississippi Delta has been living in triple-digit heat for some time now; the corn in my father's garden is apparently over seven feet tall. Me, I just planted my corn a few days ago and have no idea if it's going to make it or not. The newspaper today lamented our local farmers' losses and the sad state of our legendary farmers' markets; our strawberry farmers have lost some 80 percent of their crop to weather problems and associated pests. According to the National Weather Service, we have had FOUR - count 'em, FOUR - sunny days since April 1. That's getting close to three months ago. And no one knows why this is happening, or when it will end, which is possibly the most disturbing part of it all.

Still, today we got a few hours of blessed sunshine before the clouds rolled in again, and those hours of sunshine found me with my friend and her toddler, out on Sauvie Island picking strawberries. The crop may be suffering from the weather, but these particular strawberries were abundant, juicy, and oh-so-fragrant! I picked half a flat of them and set it on the kitchen counter when I got home, and a few hours later when I started dinner, the whole kitchen smelled like strawberries. That's how you know you've got good stuff.

So they were worth a celebration. After all, strawberries aren't so easy to come by this year, so we have to treat them right while they're here! I could think of nothing so much as strawberry shortcake. So I came up with my own fancy version: sweet, buttery short biscuits with fresh-picked rosemary baked in, topped with those juicy fresh strawberries macerated in honey, balsamic vinegar, and a little more rosemary, and then capped nicely with a scoop of Haagen-Dazs vanilla ice cream.



By the time I sat down to enjoy my dessert, the clouds had taken over again, and the air was heavy with the promise of more rain tomorrow. But for a little while, I didn't care. I sat on the porch and relished my strawberry shortcake, and the glow of a few hours' sunshine, and for as long as it took me to eat dessert, it was summer after all.

You gotta seize it when you can, these days.

Nights of Wine and Roses (and healthy bread)

Last night it was raining again, and neither of us really felt like a big meal. I was craving bread, which we've been trying to avoid lately, so I gave in and threw together a wholegrain maple-oat quickbread.

I love our porch. It has a clear roof on it, so we can sit on our porch and stay dry while we watch the rain. Our porch is screened from the street by a dense thicket of red roses, so when we sit out there in the evening, it's like being wrapped up in roses and rain, with the fresh floral scent and heavy music from the roof all around us.

There's also a table and some chairs out there, so we had our supper on the porch last night. We had the wholegrain bread with sliced radishes, pickled garlic, asiago cheese, and smoked bleu cheese. And of course, a nice little shiraz. The bread was still hot from the oven and really brought out the flavors in the cheeses... it was a good meal to linger over.

This bread is super-easy to make yourself (I adapted it from this recipe). It's a good base, so add whatever you want to it. You could add dried fruit and nuts, or seeds, or wheat berries, anything. I'm going to try it with gluten-free flour soon and see how it works as a gluten-free bread. It seems pretty flexible!

WHOLEGRAIN QUICKBREAD

1 cup rolled oats
1 cup whole wheat flour
½ cup flaxmeal
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
1 scant cup milk
1 Tbsp olive oil
2 Tbsp maple syrup

Preheat the oven to 450 F. Lightly oil a baking sheet or cover it with parchment paper.

Chuck all the dry ingredients into a bowl, just as is. Whisk it together with a fork. Pour the milk into a measuring cup, add in the olive oil and maple syrup, and whisk them together too. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry, mix it up with that fork until evenly blended, and spoon it all out onto the cookie sheet in a big rounded pile. Pat it into a round, even loaf with your hands and stick it in the oven. Bake for 25 minutes or until the bottom sounds hollow when tapped.

This is by far the easiest bread I have ever made, and it's delicious. You can use honey instead of maple syrup, soy/rice milk instead of cow's, a nut flour instead of the flaxmeal (but the flaxmeal is so good for you!), add those seeds, nuts, fruit, etc... go crazy with it.

Just make sure you enjoy it on the porch. It goes best with a rainy evening.