I made Hoppin John for New Years. It is a Southern tradition to eat black-eyed peas and Collard Greens for good luck in the coming year. In the past, I always at the black-eyed peas and collard greens as individual separate side dishes and served them usually with shrimp. When I would call Mom for New Years she would always say that she had made Hoppin John for dinner. This year, I decided to try Hoppin John--to tell the truth, I wasn't even sure what Hoppin John was so I had to do a Google search for recipes. Mom always made hers with hog jowls but I wouldn't know what do with one even if I would be likely to find it at Harmony Farms across the street from the library. So I reviewed 5 or 6 recipes so that I would get a good feel for what made a dish Hoppin John. I took from one recipe and added to another and created my own version. Mine had andouille style sausage and creole seasoning so it was a bit spicer than anything my mother would have created but suited my tastes. I then made a
batch of the cornbread recipe I learned when I was 11 years old.
Pre-heat oven to 350 and mix
1 cup flour
1 cup cornmeal
1 teaspoon baking powder
dash of salt
1 cup milk
2 eggs
I always snuck in sugar although I was under strict orders not to.
As a child, I made the cornbread in a cast iron skillet but I made them into muffins because I wanted to share them. I baked until a toothpick came out clean--about 20 minutes.
I made some cornbread several weeks ago to eat with a simple pork salsa recipe I put together for lunch. I hadn't made this recipe for going on 2 decades and was a bit surprised that the cornbread mantra I learned so long ago sprang to mind so quickly. With my left over cornbread, I made an afterwork light dinner by crumbling 2 muffins in a cup and soaking them with milk. My dad loved eating leftover cornbread this way. It was nice to revisit this memory while enjoying the first recipe I learned by heart.
When I was taking stock last year, I realized I was doing a piss-poor job feeding myself. I let food in the fridge go bad while eat out for most meals. Cooking takes time and effort, my kitchen is too small, I am just cooking for me and I don't want to eat the same thing everyday for the week. Excuses. I have had smaller kitchens--my Barbie Playhouse in Japan springs immediately to mind. The dubbed Barbie Playhouse was a 6 mat (105 square feet) living/bed/dining apartment with a micro kitchen--one burner, a toaster over, a small microwave and a dorm size cube fridge--my prep space was a movable island that resided in front of the shower room most of the day. Yet, I experimented with fried cheese sticks and other dishes from our favorite Izakaya (Japanese Pub) down across the island in Shimane. I regularly made curry, gratin, hamburg steak and other everyday Japanese meals. I cooked entire meals for guests packed in like sardines--including a Chicken Kiev Thanksgiving dinner for my boyfriend and 5 of his friends. The point is that I may gripe about the size of the my kitchen and yearn for a larger one but it isn't a deal breaker. And I have all the good stuff, I have a Global knife set, I have All-Clad and scan pan cookware, I have pretty Lennox china dishes, I have all the cool appliances, Ninja blender, Tiger fuzzy technology rice cooker,an air fryer, immersion blender, and everything else that I have bought in hopes of inspiring myself to feed myself well rather than grazing amongst the drive-thrus on my way home from work.
One of my many goals for 2024 is to feed myself better and to waste less food. To that end, since I want to walk more to work which means that I will need to take my lunch with me, I decided to try to learn some Bento recipes for two reasons, flavor and portion size. Bentos are generally packed with flavor and the portion are satiating but not huge. I also want to take the time to get things right, enjoy the process rather than rush into throwing a bunch of things together and then scarfing it down.
Two of the books I ordered from the library caught my attention--Simple Menus for the Bento Box by Ellen Greaves & Wayne Nish and Bento Love by Kentaro Kobayashi. Simple menus are so elegant in their presentation and focuses on seasonal fare. Bento Love is designed to appeal to the kid that might just trade away their lunch box or in my dueling nature case for the interior kid in possession of a debit card and a car that can veto the mom in me that prepared lunch the previous evening.
Last night I tried one of the Simple Menus meals for winter--it sounded so good and looked stunning. I had planned to make it on New Years Day when I had time to make the meal. Instead, I ended up making traditional New
Year's Southern fare--Hoppin John-- and saving the rare Fillet Mignon bento for the following day. Last night, I arrived home, hungry and with no time to wait of the meat to come to room temperature, I had no time to delicately cook my leeks and fennel and I had no lobster (I don't really care for lobster) or vermouth so that dish was off the menu deciding that leek and fennel cream soup might be a better option for me later this week. My Trader Joe's sun dried tomatoes once soaked did not look as vibrantly red as the photo and I cooked the rice in a rice cooker rather than risotto style.
The first photo is from the book and what I was hoping for, the second photo is what at for dinner last night.
I hate to say that I wasted a good piece of meat but it did not cook up as nicely as I hoped--likely my heat was too high.
Sounds like a bust, right? I definitely failed in recreating the dish per the recipe but it wasn't all bad. Even though the sun dried tomatoes didn't pop the way did in the recipe book, they were still a novel addition to the rice and the creaminess. of the goat cheese added depth that was flavorful. The red pepper balsamic salad super simple with a jar of roasted red peppers and added color to the dish. The steak although not the best wasn't awful and remembered that there is a basaltic glaze steak recipe that I haven't made in years but might drag out this year. And most importantly, I'm not a professionally trained chef with a professional kitchen at my disposal. So not a bust but maybe I'll stick to the Bento Love during work days so that I am not rushing through the process so that I can eat before 8 pm.
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