If you want to prosper in 2011- Black Eyed Peas

Several New Years traditions began with Jewish New Years traditions around Rosh Hashana. The food traditions, with the Shepardi Jews, moved to Georgia in the 1700's and the traditions have been given a good dose of Southern flare and hotsauce.

Of those traditions, black eyed peas and greens symbolize prosperity and money. With that in mind, I decided to modify a recipe from Vegetarian Suppers and use some black eyed peas with spinach and onion.

I start with half a bag of black eyed peas, the day before, because they have to soak in cold water over night and simmer for over an hour before being ready to eat.


To a large non-stick pan I added olive oil and one whole yellow onion, chopped. After the onion has cooked a bit, I added a couple handfuls of fresh parsley leaves, garlic powder, paprika, and a tablespoon of tomato paste. I stirred that a bit until incorporated and fragrant then added the spinach. About a half kilo of fresh spinach should do it. Once that has wilted. I strain most of the liquid from the black eyed peas, and add them to the spinach mixture. Salt and pepper as desired and serve over brown rice or bulgar, as I have in the picture. I heaping dallop of plain rich yogurt really goes well with this, and I've used a thick Turkish yogurt, although sour cream would be a good substitute.

Homemade Crackers

Happy New Year-

Time for shopping the sales and making new resolutions. One of mine will be a new commitment to my blogging- as if anyone wants to follow a dusty blog? Time to freshen up. Time to make more trips to the gym, stop eating junk food (not that anyone here does that, do they?) 

So with a keen mind about avoiding the typical snack food, I've decided to make some home made crackers. And of course we needed something to dip in this fabulous horse- radish cream cheese. Of course other favorite snack foods are these wasabi coated peas and we've also been snacking on a 'party mix' of dried papaya, pineable, raisins, cashews, and chocolate coated raisins, which are not as healthy as one might think.

Warning: Both of these snacks are addictive.

So I decided to make some crackers, and before long I found a lot of great recipes to work with, the end result being something like my favorite Wheat Thins (although not as thin). 

The recipe is pretty simple and allows for a lot of personalization. 

1 1/4 cup flour

1/4 cup of ground flax seed

1 table spoon of vanilla sugar

1/2 teaspoon of paprika

1/2 teaspoon of salt

4 tablespoons of butter

1/4 cup water

additional toppings, e.g. oil, salt, poppy seeds, etc

Mix together the dry ingredients, plus any adds, such as sesame seeds, flax seed, grated parmesan cheese, and the like. Cut in the butter and mash until coarse and grainy. Knead in the water until all is incorporated. 

Roll out as thinly as possible on baking parchment. Cut with a knife or a pizza cutter into whatever shapes you like. Add toppings, put the paper on to a baking pan and bake at 230C for about 12 minutes or until they start to brown. 

Of course many modifications can be made. I'd have loved to use a pasta maker to thin these out. As it is, I don't even have a rolling pin and I used an empty wine bottle I had *burp* lying around. You could make them into strips or diamond shapes, or whatever. I used rosemary infused oil and coarse salt to top. These were perfect with A's excellent lentil spinach soup. I'll have to let him guest blog about this recipe. Yum.