Good Luck in the New Year

New Year's Eve is for chumps, I am sorry to report.   It's full of hollow promises and fake fun - everyone pretending they are having a great time, but not really.  From my high school days, when my best friend (who was cheating with my boyfriend on me) vowed on NYE that girlfriends were more important than a guy and she would dump him..which she promptly didn't do, starting the very next day...to the new millenium, where Y2K was supposed to cause an apocalypse and it didn't,   I just don't buy into any of it.   I much prefer to stay home and ring in the New Year, although we used to fake midnight when the kids were younger and pretend it was midnight at 10 pm so we could go to bed early.   They are teenagers now, so we will probably stay up until the clock strikes 12.    I do look forward to hearing Auld Lang Syne, which has got to be the most depressing drinking song ever.  This version I find particularly beautiful - by Dougie MacLean....




My parents rarely went out on New Year's Eve because they didn't drink much and we lived in a neighborhood full of raging alcoholics.   We usually stayed in and and at midnight, we kids would bang on pots and pans on the front porch.  However, I can remember one time my family went to visit our old neighbors who moved "up north" to Shelby Township, which we considered very far away from Warren and out in the wilderness somewhere.   In the 1970s, it probably was very rural, now Shelby Township is just another strip of urban sprawl.   I can remember my sister Sandy and I listening to Casey Kasem's countdown for the year.  We'd write down every song in order in a notebook while my parents played euchre or pinochle.  

There are many food traditions for the New Year, although I wasn't raised with any in particular.  So I adopted one -  Hoppin' John, which is best described as "soul food" - it's black eyed peas and considered even better luck if one eats it with collard greens.    I make Hoppin' John every New Year's Eve....because I like to eat it for lunch the first week back at work.   It's so good for you - a serving of black eyed peas has w whopping 10g fiber.  I'm going to skip the "Master Cleanse" detox fad that everyone seems to be doing these days and instead pledge to eat more legumes for the New Year.   I'm going to make mine with kale today, and kielbasa.    My Hoppin' John recipe can be found here....and my tasty collards recipe can be found here.   So instead of going out tonight, how about staying in with those you love and making some really good food?   Happy New Year!

Dark Days Challenge Week 6: The Wolverine Cocktail

It's the holidays, so why not have a cocktail party for your supper?    This week, I wanted to experiment with some of the cherry brandy I made with a recipe from Linda Ziedrich's Joy of Jams, Jellies and Other Sweet Preserves.   The cherries were late this year, so I didn't miss them in their entirety as I often do, since we go out of town for the 4th of July week.    I made cherry berry spoon fruit and I also made (and remade) cherry preserves with cherries I bought at the Ann Arbor Farmer's Market. I don't remember exactly where they were from - most likely they came from the west side of the state, because we get a lot of vendors during fruit season from the more temperate side of Michigan, but I can remember buying sour cherries locally years from a place I drove to that had a cherry pitter, which was totally cool!  I really hate pitting cherries.

Late in July I bought more cherries from a roadside stand somewhere between Manistee and Traverse City.   My husband and I camped at Orchard Beach State Park while the kids were at their respective camps - the eldest at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp for art and the youngest at Boy Scout camp in Ohio.   We went wine tasting and canoeing and had a great time.  I'll say I got the cherries in Empire, because I remember stopping by the Grocer's Daughter to sample the fine chocolates.   Inspired by Melissa Clark in the NY Times, I made some real maraschino cherries. By the end of the season, I was really sick of pitting cherries, so the cherry brandy was a recipe that didn't require it, which appealed to me.

The recipe is pretty simple - and if you live in Michigan and want to make some right now, you can buy frozen sour cherries from Traverse City right now at Meijer.  The cherries are edible when it's done, but they aren't at their prime visually.   The maraschino cherries definitely look better.  

2 lb stemmed sour cherries
1 cup sugar
3 cups brandy (I used cherry brandy made at Black Star Farms in Traverse City)

Layer cherries and sugar in a 2 quart jar.  Cover the cherries with brandy.  Close the jar with a tight fitting cap and shake to dissolve the sugar.  Store the jar in a cool dark place, shaking occasionally.   The brandy will be ready in about 3 months. 

I developed this Michigan cocktail that I dubbed "The Wolverine" because Michigan is the Wolverine State.   I hope the Spartan fans aren't offended....I didn't name it the Wolverine because I went to the U of M Business School.  My heart lies with my beloved Michigan Tech Huskies, where I went to undergrad and graduate school to study engineering. 

Here's how I made my cocktail:

1 shot cherry flavored brandy (home made)
1 shot vodka (I used vodka from New Holland Brewery in Holland, MI - 155 miles)
1 shot apple cider (Wasems Orchard - 23 miles)

Shake with crushed ice and serve up in a martini glass.   Or, add some club soda (Faygo - Detroit MI 50 miles) and serve on the rocks in a highball.

Chickpea and Leek Soup

I have been a longtime fan of Christopher Kimball.   I always liked when he was a part of "Turkey Confidential" with Lynn Rosetto Kasper.    For some reason,  I don't like him so much on TV,  when he hosts America's Test Kitchen on PBS.  I don't want to sound superficial, it's just that he is rather nerdy looking with his Harry Potter-esque glasses.   The effect is that he comes off as the annoying guy you knew from college that sits in the front row of every class, brown nosing the professor, like   he knows more than you do.  Heck, he probably does know more than I do, but I don't want to feel that way. I much prefer Kimball's writing - as the editor of Cook's Illustrated, I've always enjoyed his essays at the beginning of the magazine entitled Letter from Vermont, which are more about Vermonter's life philosophy and less about knowing everything.   I realize I am applying a double standard - maybe those celebrity chefs that are also "eye candy" can get away with talking like they know more than I do. 

Over the holiday break, I got lots of cookbooks out of the library and a big stack were Chris Kimball books.  I am liking the tone of his cookbooks - much more user friendly and personal than the magazine or the TV show.   In the one I am reading now, Kitchen Detective,  he writes about what recipes inspire him, and then he goes out to make them even better.   That's how I like to work in the kitchen as well.    Plus, there's little folksy witticisms laced throughout....it's a great cookbook.  I might have to buy it.   He said he was inspired by Jamie Oliver's chickpea soup recipe from the Naked Chef, another cookbook I need to get out of the library soon.   Talk about eye candy!  You be the judge....somehow, even though Jamie's always telling me how to cook and eat as well, I seem to take it better. 

Looks notwithstanding, I tried Kimball's chickpea soup and I liked that he used dried chickpeas instead of canned (or "tinned", as Jamie Oliver called them in his recipe), and he garnished his with the stuff you put on top of osso bucco, a dish made of veal shank I once made that no one but me would eat here at our house.   The official name of that stuff is gremolata and it is wonderful with this soup.  Kimball insists that the soup is better with homemade chicken stock, which is how I made mine because I had some in the freezer, but the "tinned" stuff would do just fine.    Here's my take on it:

Chickpea and Leek Soup
printer friendly recipe
Makes enough for about 6 people

2 c. dried chickpeas, rinsed, picked over and soaked overnight
1 t. kosher salt
2 T. butter
2 T. olive oil
2 leeks - white and light green parts, cut in half lengthwise and sliced
3 cans chicken broth - like Cook's Illustrated, I like Swanson's Natural Goodness (low sodium)
4 medium potatoes, peeled diced in 1/2 inch pieces

For the gremolata
1/2 cup chopped flat leaf parsley
zest of 2 lemons
2 cloves garlic, minced

Fresh grated Parmesan cheese

Prepare the chickpeas by draining them and cooking them in a quart of cold water with the salt until they are tender - about 30 minutes.  Drain.   Melt the butter and olive oil in a dutch oven and add the leek and saute until soft.   Add chickpeas, chicken broth and potato pieces.  Cook until the potatoes are tender.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

To make the gremolata, chop parsley and add lemon zest and garlic, and chop together until fine.   Garnish soup with gremolata and fresh grated Parmesan cheese.    This soup was wonderful on a cold winter'd day like today.   I can't call it a "pantry soup" like Chris Kimball did - because I had to run out and buy some leeks.  I had some leftover flat leaf parsley from another recipe, but that isn't something I'd have on hand.   I did have some Meyer lemons, which I keep in the fridge, just as Cook's Illustrated told me to.  They stay fresh a long time in the fridge.   Thanks for the tip Chris, maybe YOU DO know more than I do!