better than black-eyes

Just read their delicate, poetic name -- Lady Cream Peas. Can’t you feel them melting in your mouth, with perhaps a hint of dairy and plenty of salty liquor? (That’s the liquid surrounding cooked legumes, for the teetotalers out there…)

And this is just what these perfect little beans do. Ever so much more aristocratic than the lowly purple hull, yards more fragile in flavor than brash black eyes, and infinitely more complex than any that arrive in a can, the Lady Cream Pea is a precious, fresh-butter-colored legume that is a bit harder to find than the aforementioned lesser varieties.

But Canton (which, as you know if you’re from East Texas, markets everything that could possibly be sold, whether quilts or Corian cutting boards) happens to house Sides Pea Farm, and if you’re clever enough to stop by their produce stand at Highway 19 and I-20, you can snag a bag of Lady Creams for a few dollars. You’ll never go back to black eyes, even to ring in the New Year.

And have a happy one, by the way!

Lady Cream Peas

2 cups fresh Lady Creams
A pat of butter
S&P

Cover the fresh peas in plenty of water and set to a low, rolling boil for 1 1/2 to 2 hours. About five minutes from done, add the butter and douse with salt and pepper. Serve hot, and in a big bowl.

in between

The days between Christmas and New Year’s Day are a little odd, I must admit. We typically leave the lights and ornaments up until January 1, but the trees are bare of gifts and the stockings hang dull and empty. Gorging on leftovers is a given, but the guilt is steadily beginning to creep up. And it’s definitely still a few days too early to start the annual diet.

My outrageous love of holiday cooking has also begun to wane, as steadily as the bag of peppermint bark in the fridge depletes. I want simple, warm food, easily whipped up in a matter of minutes but still loaded with enough cheese to keep me in vacation mode. So I’ll share one of my favorite recipes, plus an easy, interesting way to cook pasta that lifts the lowly egg noodle to true gourmet status.

If you don’t have leeks and Swiss on hand, feel free to switch ‘em out for sautéed onions, zucchini or squash and cheddar or gouda.

Absorption Pasta with Leeks and Swiss

1 pound pasta (rotini and farfalle work best)
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 cloves garlic
1 leek, thinly sliced
As much chopped-up cheese as you can stand
S&P

Heat the olive oil in a large, shallow saucepan and sauté the garlic for 2 minutes. Add the pasta, stirring to coat the noodles in oil and sautéing for another 2 minutes. Pour enough water in the pan to just cover the noodles and bring to a boil. Boil for 8 minutes or until pasta is tender.

Meanwhile, sauté leeks (or other veggie) in a bit of olive oil until tender. When the pasta is done, strain and toss with sautéed veggies and cheese. Douse with salt and pepper and… you know… gorge!

sweet thing

Christmas is sheer delight simply because it provides a great excuse to make and ingest tons of candy. People pass out candy canes like coupons and share chocolates like air, and our belts complain loudly. And it is so worth it.

My number-one favorite holiday candy has always been peppermint bark. Put away the divinity, for heaven’s sake, and the pecan turtles and chocolate-covered cherries (those are just for my Daddy Tom, anyway) -- I could scarf down a full pound of peppermint bark and never be quite satisfied. Something about the crunchy mint and the creamy chocolate is more potent than the best gin. And infinitely more addictive.

I’ve always associated it with those pricey gift baskets grateful patients and cloying pharmaceutical reps shower on my doctor dad. You know, the ones full of smoked cheddar and logs of sausage and grapefruit and, occasionally, those shiny tins of peppermint bark from somewhere fancy like Williams-Sonoma. And thus, I’ve always thought of my precious PB as a bit expensive, a bit rare, a bit… riche.

Then I look it up on foodnetwork.com and realize it’s just white chocolate and crushed peppermints. Hey, I can make that, and so can you! Except I prefer PB with a backbone of semisweet to balance out the tongue-numbing sweetness of white chocolate, so my version just happens to be even better than Mr. Sonoma’s.

Peppermint Bark

2 packages white chips
2 packages semisweet chips
12 candy canes, crushed*

Line a big, flat pan with wax paper. Melt the semisweet chocolate over a double boiler (I don’t even know if they sell real ones anymore… just plop a metal bowl over a pan of boiling water) and pour into the pan, spreading evenly. Stick in the fridge for about 45 minutes to cool and harden the chocolate.

Melt the white chocolate in the same way, then stir in the peppermint. Spread the mixture over the cooled dark chocolate, then stick back in the fridge for an hour or so. Lift the wax paper out of the pan, break off giant hunks, and curl up on the couch to eat a plateful.

*This is by FAR the most enjoyable part of the process! Put the canes in a big ziploc bag, cover with a dish towel, then hunker down on the garage floor with a hammer and go to town. Pieces should range from dust-particle-size to pea-size.

family secret #2

Here's the best dadgum (and prettiest) cranberry sauce you ever had, and from a girl who doesn't much like cranberry sauce. Thanks, Uncle Perry!

Perry's Cranberry Sauce

2 cans whole cranberry sauce
1 cup celery
1 green apple
1 small package sliced almonds

Thinly slice the celery and apple and mix thoroughly with the cranberry sauce. Spread in a small dish and top with a thick layer of sliced almonds.

family secret #1

First, the best cornbread dressin’ you've ever had, with faux-giblet gravy, straight from my Nanny’s mouth.

Dressin’:

3 cups white corn meal
3/4 cup tablespoons flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons salt
4 cups buttermilk

1 1/2 cups celery

1 1/2 cups onion

4 chicken breasts

8 boiled eggs

Stir together first five ingredients. Cut up about 1-1/2 cups of celery and 1-1 1/2 cups of onion. Add to the cornbread mixture. (from Nanny, “This is my idea---I do not know anyone that cooks their celery and onion in the cornbread for dressing but it is fully cooked this way.”) Heat an iron skillet on top of stove with a little oil -- sprinkle a small amount of cornmeal in skillet, pour in cornbread mixture and cook in oven about 20 minutes at 400 degrees. Turn bread out of pan and let cool. Can be cooked the day before.

Crumble cornbread.....add 3-4 crumbled bread heels OR slices as well. Cook chicken in water to make broth, remove the chicken, then pour in just enough broth to moisten the cornbread mixture. Add 3 torn-up chicken breasts to the cornbread mix. Cut up and add eggs.

**NEVER pack dressing into pan to cook, and don’t stir too much!

"Giblet" Gravy

Use the rest of the chicken broth for the gravy. Don’t use giblets -- instead use the remaining chicken breast. Also, use broth from a box to have enough. In a saucepan over medium-high heat, stir the broth with 2-3 chopped, boiled eggs and the torn-up chicken breast. Get broth to boiling. Meanwhile, put 2-3 tablespoons of flour in a glass, and add hot or warm water to make a thin paste. As the broth boils, add the flour mixture to thicken it. Season with salt and pepper, heat thoroughly, and the “giblet” gravy is done!

t-day

Ok, so I’m a little late in writing about Thanksgiving, seeing as every store is fully festooned with Christmas bows and fake greenery and December has officially begun. But hey, it was late this year, and I’m still recuperating from the delicious glut of home-cooked goodies. (Bathroom scale, thou art my current and most loathed enemy!)

I’ll keep it simple in homage to the place we celebrated, because Noonday is a wonderfully simple sort of place, a place where lots of flowery adjectives just don’t seem right. So I’ll let the food speak for itself, and, in a couple days, I'll share two family recipes that are none of my doing but still publication-worthy. The following was our stupendous menu:

* Greenberg Turkey
* Cornbread Dressin’
* Giblet Gravy
* Baked Macaroni and Cheese
* Sautéed Brussels Sprouts
* Artichoke Casserole
* Green Beans
* Cranberry Sauce (both tart and sweet)
* Sweet Potatoes, au naturel

P.S. Doesn't my Daddy Tom have great hands?? (see above)