Black-Eyed Peas with Okra and Sweet Potatoes

Incredibly, we have reached the end of 2008. Like every year, it's had some good, some bad and some ugly, but as we stand on the precipice of 2009, it's time to look back on what's happened and use what we can to make the future a better place. So I'd like to take this opportunity to wish everyone peace, love, happiness, prosperity and all things that are good, including lots and lots of...beans!

Legumes are a major staple of our vegan diet, and at this time of year they even have folkloric street cred: in the southern United States, black-eyed peas are traditionally eaten at New Year's to ensure good luck for the coming twelve months. A cursory Google search says the black spot represents a "lucky streak," and notes that "the legumes are typically accompanied by either hog jowls or ham...the hog, and thus its meat, is considered lucky because it symbolizes prosperity" [although not, it must be noted, for the hog itself-Ed.], while another site offers the following: "Some say the black-eyed pea's association with good fortune dates back to the pharaohs. Others say it started in Vicksburg, Virginia, during the Civil War when the town ran out of food while under siege and the inhabitants were lucky enough to discover dried black-eyed peas among their stores. Meanwhile, cabbage leaves are thought to bring prosperity to those who eat them on New Year's Day."

Of course, the "luck" conferred upon the digestion by the combination of legumes and cabbage may be open to debate, but it still sounds a lot better than hog jowls, unless you're Granny Clampett, in which case you probably don't want to spend New Year's with us, anyway: we have a much smaller fancy-eatin' room, and boast no cement pond at all. But whatever the reason, Egyptians or Damn Yankees, eating black-eyed peas is a time-honored way of ushering out the old and ringing in the new, and this is the way I do it. Let me say straight up that A. this makes a ton (I like to freeze things for when I'm too lazy/busy to cook), but can be easily halved for a more reasonable quantity, and B. my version is more curried than Cajun, but go ahead and adjust the seasonings to suit your own taste. I've used frozen black-eyed peas when they happened to be on hand, but soaking raw ones is even better, provided you remember to do it (so don't forget, okay? Or at least make sure you have some frozen, so you aren't all disappointed at midnight!). With some rice, garlicky greens and extra hot sauce, this is a delicious, healthy start to a brave new year: the best one yet!

Black-Eyed Peas with Okra and Sweet Potatoes

Ingredients:
~ 1 tbsp. olive oil
~ 2 tbsp. minced garlic

~ 4 cups onions, diced

~ 1 cup each: celery; bell pepper, chopped

~ 3 cups vegetable stock
~ 1 28-ounce can fire-roasted tomatoes
, including liquid
~ 1 lb. okra, tops removed and sliced 
(4 cups, or a 1 lb, bag if using frozen)
~ 3 sweet potatoes, chopped
~ 1/2 cup red wine
~ 1 tsp. Thai red curry paste
~ 1 tbsp. Jamaican curry powder
~ 1 tsp. each: salt, chili powder, cumin, coriander, smoked paprika, thyme, garam masala, Liquid Smoke (if you have it)
~ ¼ tsp. each: cayenne pepper, allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg
~ 2 tbsp. molasses and/or maple syrup
~ 3 cups frozen black-eyed peas (or 1.5 cup raw, soaked overnight)
~ Lots of black pepper, or to taste
~ 2-3 cups baby spinach, chopped

Directions:
~ Heat the olive oil in a large, heavy-bottomed pot over medium flame. Add the onions and cook, stirring regularly, until they begin to brown, about 8 minutes.
~ Add the garlic, bell pepper, celery, sweet potatoes and spices. Cook for 5 minutes, then add the red wine to deglaze the pan; add the tomatoes and cook for another minute or two.
~ Add remaining ingredients and cook over medium heat until okra is thoroughly cooked and the mixture has thickened, about 45-55 minutes.
~ Add the baby spinach and a little more stock if desired; it should be thicker than a soup but still a bit brothy.
~ Cook another 20 minutes over low heat, then allow to stand awhile; the longer it sits, the better it will be.
~ Serve over rice with sautéed kale, chard or (ideally) collard greens and extra hot sauce.

Happy New Year!!!

Curried Winter Squash Soup

First of all, I'd like to wish everyone a happy Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanzaa, Festivus, Giftmas, Dance-Naked-Around-the-Kitchen Day, and/or whatever combination of these or other holidays you observe at this festive time of year, and all good things for 2009; if it's anything like 2008, we are certain never to be bored. That said, I am filled with a sense of cautious optimism , which is partly due to our incoming new president, and partly to the fact that I'm a shameless Pollyanna sentimentalist around the holidays. But let's face it: it's as easy to be hopeful as pessimistic, besides being much more fun.

So...heigh-ho, sing heigh-ho unto the green holly, most friendship [may be] feigning, most loving [possibly] mere folly, but for a few weeks of the year it's fun to bring trees into the house, eat too many cookies and get in touch with people we love but see far too infrequently.

Which brings me in a roundabout way to the ostensible subject of this post, which happens to be soup (we like soup, so sue us). Way back in the 2nd millennium, I lived in Rindge, New Hampshire for a year, where I made an awesome friend named Hal Masonberg, with whom I shared a passion for squandering our young adulthoods chasing the Grateful Dead all over Christendom, having what we called "loads-o-fun." To enumerate our many hijinks would be to squander the gentle reader's time and patience, but one illustrative anecdote involves him returning one of my Indian bedspreadesque hippie skirts, leaving a message with my bemused roommate that he liked it, but would like to borrow a longer one next time (having discovered what all girls are born knowing, which is that dancing, twirling and spinning are way more fun in a skirt). Get me started on our food-based adaptations of Dead lyrics..."Walk me out in the honeydew, my melon," and "Don't you let that meal go down" don't begin to cover it! Good times.

So what the hell does any of this have to do with soup, you ask? Well, I'm getting to it! For many years, I've been making this curried squash soup, which my omnivorous, butter-obsessed mom has always loved. Not long ago, she asked where I got the idea for it, which is where Hal comes in. He did his BA at Keene State College, and after I'd fled the Granite State for Massachusetts, I'd go up to see him occasionally. I was a vegetarian in those days, and there was a place called Henry David's (like Thoreau, get it?) in Keene that was a sort of classic college town restaurant, with groovy salads and stuff like hummus that were vaguely exotic in those days. Anyway, once upon a time we had a butternut bisque there, which was sort of sweet, a little spicy, and vaguely curryish; even way back then, I would taste stuff in restaurants and start thinking about how I might do it at home, and I really liked that soup. So I starting messing around with squashes, vegetable stock and various spices, and this was the eventual result.

Having made it--or variations on it--for lo, these many years now, I still like it a lot; something about it just says "winter." Sometimes I use apples instead of the parsnips listed below (in about the same quantity, or you could use both), but I had parsnips that needed to be eaten, so here they are. Like most pureed soups, it's pretty forgiving; mix and match, use butternut or acorn squash, or even sweet potatoes, or some combination, it's all good. It's best with some dense, crusty bread and one of those groovy salads; in a perfect world, there will be alfalfa sprouts in this picture, maybe with some nice tahini-based dressing like Annie's Crack...er, I mean Goddess Dressing. That stuff makes me want to put on Augusta 10/12/84 (oh, that "Cold Rain and Snow" 2nd set opener!) and spin around til I'm dizzy, and Hal: I have an awesome skirt you can borrow whenever you like.


Curried Winter Squash Soup

Ingredients:
~ 1 tbsp. olive oil
~ 2 tbsp. minced garlic
~ 2 cups chopped onions
~ 1 cup chopped celery
~ 1.5 cups chopped parsnips (or apples, or both)
~ 1 winter squash, cut into 1/2" cubes (about 8-10 cups)
~ 1 tbsp. curry powder
~ 2 tsp. each: salt, fenugreek powder
~ 1 tsp. each: thyme, cumin, chili powder, dill
~ 1/2 tsp. each: nutmeg, cinnamon
~ 1/4-1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper or hot sauce; more to taste
~ Lots of fresh black pepper
~ 3 cups apple cider (or vegetable broth if you don't have it)
~ 1 15 oz. can lite coconut milk

Directions:
~ In a large pot, heat the oil and saute the garlic, onions and celery for about 5 minutes over medium heat.
~ Add the parsnips and spices; stir to coat and cook another 5 minutes.
~ Add the cubed squash and the apple cider; raise heat to high and bring to a boil.
~ Turn the heat to low, cover and simmer for about 30 minutes, or until the vegetables are soft, stirring occasionally.
~ Remove from heat, add the coconut milk, and puree with an immersion blender or transfer to a food processor in batches. Return to almost (but not quite!) boiling, then serve hot.

Socca (Provencal Chickpea Flour Pancake)

Chickpea flour is one of those amazing things I discovered relatively late (like olives, which I thought were disgusting until I was in my 30s; now I would mainline them if I could just figure out how). I'd eaten it in Indian cooking forever, but it never occurred to me to take some home and play around with it. Turns out that you can make a lot more than dosai with this stuff; I've already posted about the wonderfulness that is "fronch" toast, and with this recipe we travel to the sunny south of France, where we get to eat chickpea flour and olives on the same plate! (Can't you just smell that lavender?)

This baked pancake is sort of like a fritatta, sort of like a dosa, and sort of like a pizza. It's a bit fiddly, and after substituting a cast iron pizza pan for the big cast iron skillet we no longer have, I highly recommend using the latter, even if you have to go out and buy one: I know what I want from Santa this year. That said, it's totally worth it, and it made a delicious brunch on a Saturday morning (oh, all right, it was actually 12.30pm, but whatever), and in fact there was so much leftover that we had it again on Sunday; with the addition of a nice green salad, it could be a perfectly acceptable lunch or dinner as well. It's traditionally eaten as is, but since I can never leave well enough alone--and was cooking as a procrastination tactic to put off writing a paper; gotta spin that action out as long as possible--I made a sort of saucy topping to spoon over the individual slices, for which I include the recipe. As those creepy Campbell's Soup kids used to say: mmm-mmm, good!

The Pancake

Ingredients:
~ 2 cups chickpea flour
~ 1/2 tsp. each salt, thyme
~ A few grinds of black pepper
~ 3 cups warm water
~ 4 tbsp. olive oil

Directions:
~ Preheat the oven to 500 degrees fahrenheit
~ In a mixing bowl, combine the chickpea flour, salt, spices, water and oil. Mix thoroughly with a whisk and set aside for 0 minutes (during that time you can prepare your topping, below).
~ After 30 minutes have passed, place an oiled cast iron skillet or deep-dish pizza pan in the oven for 5 minutes.
~ Give the batter another good stir, then pour it into the heated cast iron pan. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until solidified and brown, but not too crisp (don't worry, you'll know, really).
~ Remove from oven, allow to stand about 5 minutes before cutting into slices, and serving at once, covered with the topping below, or anything you like, really (next time I'm going to try it with caramelized onions and mushrooms).

The Topping

Ingredients:
~ 1 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
~ 2 tbsp. minced garlic
~ 2 cups chopped onion
~ 1 bell pepper, chopped (about 1 cup)
~ 1 cup pitted, sliced black olives
~ 1 15. oz. can fire-roasted tomatoes
~ 1 tsp. each: salt, thyme, tarragon, basil
~ Lots of fresh black pepper
~ 1/2 cup ry red wine

Directions:
~ In a large skillet or wok, heat the oil over medium heat and saute the garlic and onions 10-15 minutes, stirring frequently.
~ Add the seasonings, peppers, tomatoes and olives and stir to combine. Continue cooking another 10 minutes.
~ Raise the heat to high and add the wine; cook another 5-10 minutes, stirring often until the liquid reduces. Remove from heat and spoon over your slices of Socca.

Cream of Mushroom Soup

By this point, you might be getting the idea that we really like mushrooms, considering the fact that they have been prominently featured in my last several posts. And you would be so right, because we actually loooove them, like we love them so much that we would probably polygamously marry them if that were legal in the state of Massachusetts (baby steps, people: we shall overcome!). So get ready, because here comes another fungus-based recipe, this time an attempt to recapture the taste of a favorite childhood comfort food.

It's a sad fact that no matter how well we take care of ourselves, sometimes we get sick, especially at this time of the rolling year. In our house, we've had a recent visitation of generalized fatigue, muscle aches, stuffiness, and an overall stupidheaded feeling that necessitated a day or two of laying low, drinking tea and (are we lucky or what?!) watching a Twilight Zone marathon on the Sci-Fi Channel. Ask me about the episode in which Shakespeare is conjured by an aspiring writer via "black magic" to coauthor a cheezy TV pilot circa 1963, featuring Burt Reynolds as a poor man's Marlon Brando. No, seriously, ask me; I thought I was having febrile hallucinations. Worst of all, my lifelong hero came off as a bit of a hack....gods, clay feet, etc. Sigh. That said, if he wants to come back and help me write my thesis, I'm in!

But I digress. My partner, wracked with malaise, expressed the wistful desire for the cream of mushroom soup of our bygone youth, an idea which became a very maggot in my brain, especially after Shakespeare socked Burt Reynolds in the jaw. So once I'd had enough Rod Serling, I wended my way downstairs to the kitchen with the aim of gratifying this wish. Now, it should go without saying that I am incapable of producing an exact copy of that canned elixir. For one thing, I haven't the first idea how to replicate such ribbed, cylindrical splendor - nothing rude about that! - but I do know my way around a mushroom (see illustration above). So, after nibbling a bit from here and drinking a bit from there, I came up with something pretty close, but even better. I believe it's the unexpected addition of coconut milk (thanks to the PPK for the tip!) that makes this soup hit that "cream of" spot we all remember so well, but whatever works, right? Get into your jammies, then eat this in front of the television; with some toast and a few reruns of Scooby-Doo, I promise everything's going to be all better.

Cream of Mushroom Soup

Ingredients:
~ 1 tbsp. olive oil
~ 1/4 cup diced celery
~ 1 cup diced onion
~ 1 lb. thinly sliced mushroom (8-10 cups after slicing, be generous!)
~ 1 tsp. each: salt, thyme
~ 1/2 tsp. each: sage, rosemary
~ 1/2 cup chopped, fresh parsley
~ Fresh black pepper
~ 1/2 cup dry white wine
~ 1 cup unsweetened soy milk
~ 1 cup vegetable broth (I love the Better Than Bouillon "No Chicken")
~ 1 15 oz. can "lite" coconut milk

Also:
~ 1 tbsp. olive oil
~ 2 tbsp. flour

Directions:
~ In a bowl or large beaker, combine the vegetable broth, soy milk and coconut milk, and set aside
~ In a large, heavy-bottomed pot, heat the oil and saute the celery and onions 5 minutes.
~ Add the mushrooms and seasonings, then cook another 15 minutes or so.
~ Add the wine, stir thoroughly, and cover. Cook another 10 minutes over low heat.
~ In a saucepan, heat 1 tbsp. olive oil over low heat, adding the flour gradually to make a roux, stirring constantly and adding about 1 cup of the broth/milk mixture until it begins to thicken. Set aside.
~ Pour the remaining broth/milk mixture into the sauteed vegetables and simmer 15 minutes over low heat.
~ Add the thickened roux to the soup, and stir thoroughly to combine.
~ Adjust seasonings and puree with an immersion blender (or transfer in batches to food processor or regular blender) until smooth.
~ Serve with generously "buttered" (we recommend Earth Balance) toast for the perfect lunch or dinner when it's cold outside and you're feeling poorly.

Mashed Potato Pancakes

The weather around here has been really cold and grey lately, and the result has been a fair amount of podgy, wintry food...pasta, potatoes, savory pies, etc. (Hey, they say it's going to snow on Sunday, and aren't bulky sweaters a wonderful thing?) Anyway, everyone in my house has a deep, burning passion for mashed potatoes, so we make them pretty often; in fact, we always manage to make too much. Which is actually a good thing, because these pancakes are the best use for leftover mashed potatoes. Period. They are loosely based on the ones my dad used to whip up when he was in a mood to be especially nice ("Food As Love" was big in our family; don't even get me started on his fettuccine alfredo). I've made some important adaptations to his method, leaving out the eggs and adding a few sauteed veggies, but mixed with a little flour and fried in olive oil, they hit exactly the same spot. They're especially good for an indulgent weekend breakfast; we actually had ours with leftover mushroom gravy from the previous night's dinner, for which I'll include the recipe if you're inclined to do the same.

Mashed Potato Pancakes

Ingredients:
~ 2 cups leftover mashed potatoes
~ 1/2 cup plain unsweetened soy or other non-dairy milk
~ 1/3 cup flour (I use whole wheat pastry for everything, but all purpose is fine)
~ Salt and pepper to taste
~ 1 tbsp. olive oil
~ 4 thinly sliced scallions (or 1/2 cup chopped onion)
~ 1 tbsp. minced garlic
~ 1 cup chopped mushrooms
~ Olive oil or cooking spray for frying

Directions:
~ Coat a baking sheet with cooking spray and place in a preheated, 400 degree oven..
~ Heat the olive oil in a skillet over medium heat; add the garlic, scallions and mushrooms and saute about 5 minutes. Set aside.
~ In a mixing bowl, combine the potatoes, soy milk and flour together to make a thick batter; add a bit more flour if it seems too wet.
~ Add the sauteed vegetables and mix thoroughly.
~ Wipe out your skillet and coat with cooking spray or a thin layer of oil, then place over medium-high heat.
~ Drop the batter into the hot pan with a large serving spoon, one spoonful at a time, and flatten slightly to form a patty about 3" across; 3 at a time is about as many as you want to fry at once.
~ Cook for 3-4 minutes on each side until golden brown, then transfer to the baking sheet until they are all cooked.
~ Serve with applesauce, non-dairy sour cream or...

Mushroom Gravy

Ingredients:
~ 2 tbsp. olive oil, divided
~ 1 tbsp. minced garlic
~ 2 cups thinly sliced mushrooms
~ 2-3 tbsp. flour
~ 1 cup plain, unsweetened soy or other non-dairy milk
~ 1 cup vegetable broth
~ 1 tsp. each salt, thyme, sage, dried parsley
~ Lots of fresh black pepper
~ 1/4-1/2 tsp. hot sauce, to taste

Directions:
~ Combine the soy milk and vegetable broth and heat to almost boiling, either on the stove or in the microwave.
~ In a skillet, saute the garlic, mushrooms and seasonings over medium heat until softened, about 5-10 minutes.
~ In a saucepan, warm the oil over medium-low heat and add the flour and the spices, stirring to make a roux.
~ As it begins to thicken, add about 1/2 cup of the broth/soy milk mixture, stirring until smooth.
~ Add the sauteed vegetables and then, gradually, the remaining liquid, stirring constantly as it begins to thicken.
~ Raise the heat to medium and continue cooking 5-10 minutes, until you get the consistency you like (you can always add more liquid if it's too thick, or turn the heat up to reduce it if it's not thick enough).
~ Serve over mashed potatoes, mashed potato pancakes, biscuits, or whatever else you like.