New Year's Recipes

As promised, here are the "recipes" (aka improvisations) I used for New Year's Day dinner, turnip greens and black-eyed peas. Actually, this is less for our faithful readers than it is for me, so I know where to find the recipes next year when I make them again. I still don't know where my original recipes and notes are.

Turnip Greens
Ingredients:

• 6 bunches of turnip greens
• one box of vegetable broth
• 3(ish) Tbsp of extra virgin olive oil
• one onion, diced
• 6(ish) cloves of garlic, minced
• 3(ish) handfuls of various dried mushrooms (whatever's available should work)
• 1(ish) Tbsp ground cumin
• 1(ish) Tbsp garlic powder
• 1/2(ish) Tbsp onion powder or dried minced onion
• salt and pepper to taste

Stem, rip up, and wash turnip greens.

Saute the diced onion and minced garlic in olive oil. Add turnip greens in handfuls to fill the stock pot. Add vegetable broth when it starts to look to dry in the pot.

As the greens cook down, add more handfuls until all are in the pot. Add mushrooms and seasonings and stir to make sure everything is submerged.

Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer, covered, for about 4 or 5 hours. Serve hot.

Slow-Cooker Black-Eyed Peas
Ingredients:

• 2 pounds of dried black-eyed peas
• 3(ish) Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• one box of vegetable broth
• 3(ish) handfuls of dried mushrooms (use same as in the greens)
• one onion, diced
• 6(ish) cloves of garlic, minced
• one 28-oz can of diced roasted tomatoes
• 2 bay leaves
• 1(ish) Tbsp ground cumin
• salt and pepper to taste

Soak peas according to package directions (I used the quick-soak method). Add all ingredients into large oval slow cooker, cover, and cook on low for 8 hours. Serve hot.


Cornbread
Prepare cornbread according to Alton Brown's "Cornbread No Chaser" recipe in I'm Just Here for More Food. (This one is a very traditional Southern cornbread.) And/or the "Crunchy Munchy Corn and Millet Bread" recipe in the January '09 issue of Eating Well magazine. (This a yeast bread and more chewy and bread-y than Alton's. It also takes 2 days to make.) Serve both with butter. Yum!


You might want to prepare another main dish, like chili, for folks who aren't into black-eyed peas and turnip greens (who perhaps you might be married to).

Possum-Breath Chili (modified)
An R. Wilson Original
Ingredients:

• 1 pound of ground turkey breast
• 10 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 can no salt added tomato sauce
• 6 Tbsp chili powder
• 1 Tbsp cayenne pepper
• 3 Tbsp tabasco sauce
• 1 Tbsp dried oregano
• 1 Tbsp ground cumin
  
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 oz grated bitter chocolate
• 1 1/2 to 2 tsp salt (to taste)
• 1 can of diced roasted tomatoes + water sufficient to equal 1 quart
• 1 Tbsp cocktail bitters
• 1 c. brewed decaf coffee
• 1/2 c. masa cornmeal
• crushed pepper and garlic powder to taste

Brown meat and drain. Dump everything but cornmeal into a large Dutch oven or crock pot. Heat just to boil. Immediately cut heat, cover, and simmer for 6-8 hours. Begin tasting at 4 hours and add whatever needs adding. Stir in cornmeal. Simmer uncovered for an additional 30 minutes, stirring on occasion. Serve hot. Can be made ahead (preferable if you're making all of the above as well) and reheated on the day of serving.



If you try any of these at home, let us know how you like them!

P.S. Everything went over very well with our dinner guests, and several took leftovers home to enjoy later.

Falling Behind!

Here we are so close to the end of Holidailies, which runs through January 6, and we're falling behind! We owe our faithful reader(s) a post from yesterday AND today. Yikes! We're definitely going to follow through and finish strong, we might just bend the rules a little bit and post the requisite number of posts, just not on every day of the project.

As I've mentioned before, I'm training for a half-marathon, so this morning I ran 13 miles (nearly the distance of the race). It was a bit miserable weatherwise (it was so hot and humid (76 degrees on January 3!) and cedar season has started, which means I have itchy eyes and ears and plenty of sneezes). It was a pretty good run, though, and I saw plenty of interesting things on the run. The most notable thing was a pair of chickens in an urban, residential neighborhood, just strolling along the side of the road. There was a reddish brown hen and a pretty black rooster with a glorious fan of tail feathers. Strange and weird and yet not completely out of place for this great town we live in.There were also a lot of people out running, some obviously training for the marathon, others out for walks or jogs or bike rides, enjoying the spring-like weather.

In these final few days of Holidailies, you can look forward to posts that include New Year's recipes and photos as well as a meaty restaurant review. And whatever else we can think of.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! That's us at the beginning of last night's party, all dressed up and fancy-looking (not as much as the college girls sitting behind us, though). I'm totally pooped from cooking and getting ready for our dinner party. Don't worry, it's a good tired, from spending time with friends, feeding them good food, and celebrating the start of a brand new year together.

That's not everyone, but that's the best shot of the house full of friends, food, fun, and laughter that I got. I'll post more about the food I made later. For now, I want to wish everyone a happy new year and say that I agree with Brian about posting more here in 2009 (I'm glad we signed up for Holidailies!).

Suck it, 2008!

We attended the New Year's Eve party at the Alamo Drafthouse this year. The party was hosted by our friend Henri. That's him in the picture above.

We will likely post many more pictures from the party at a later date. For now, I just want to focus on the new year.

What sucked most in 2008...
Michigan football

What I look forward to most in 2009...
Michigan football (not actually the thing I look forwad to most, but the number one thing would be so awesome that I don't want to jinx it)

What disappointed me in 2008...
I'm so fat that many of my shirts don't fit anymore.

What I want to change in 2009...
I want to throw out all my shirts and replace them with ones that fit. (Did you think for a second that I would make a resolution to lose weight in 2009? You obviously don't know me. It would be awesome to lose weight, but... like... that's a total jinx.)

What I did too much in 2008...
Sat at home. Seriously. This town is incredible with lots of live music and cool events and I sit at home most weekends. I need to get out more. I need to get my wife out more. We need to enjoy this town!

What I want to do more of in 2009...
Blog. It's fun to pretend that people read this and care.

Band that sucked in 2008...
Sorry Death Cab for Cutie, but Narrow Stairs was probably your worst album. I still have faith. Ben needs to get fat again!

Band I'm watching in 2009...
This is tough. I think it's a tie between Thursday and Jimmy Eat World. However, a band I've never heard of will likely blow me away and make this whole section moot.

2009 will be known as the year of the...
Narwhal. You just wait. They're ferocious and they've been waiting for 2009!

Happy New Year everyone! Go Red Wings. Go Tigers. Go Pistons. Go Wolverines. Go Owls. Watch out for narwhals in 2009. Good night.

New Year's Preparations

Forgive us, again. We forgot to post yesterday, so think of this as yesterday's post.

Being good Southerners, my family has a food-related superstition, I mean, tradition for New Year's Day. We eat turnip greens and black-eyed peas. As I learned it, the turnip greens are for money, and the black-eyed peas are for luck. (Similar traditions I've heard of involve collard greens or cabbage for the greens.)

My grandmother used to make the turnip greens in the good Southern way of boiling them to death (probably about 8 hours or so) with some slab of pork product in the pot. The black-eyed peas got a similar treatment, though they weren't cooked for as long.

I choose to make my greens and peas vegetarian, both for the health benefits and because we have vegetarian friends that have joined us for past New Year's Day dinners. I add olive oil and dried mushrooms to the greens (and usually don't cook them quite as long, but still a long time), and olive oil, dried mushrooms, onions, and tomatoes to the peas (which I cook in the crock-pot). Unfortunately, I can't find my recipes that I created over the past few years so I'll be winging it on New Year's.

To prepare for the dinner, the first step is purchasing the ingredients. Whole Foods didn't have turnip greens, only collards, so I went to Central Market in the hopes they had some. Jackpot!


I got plenty of looks walking around the grocery store with that pile of greens (don't worry, they cook down a lot when you boil them for a few hours), and the cashier asked me what I was making with all the turnip greens. Uh, turnip greens.

To make room in the fridge, I took the stems off the greens and ended up with two produce bags stuffed with torn leaves.


I know we'll have lots of leftovers of the greens, regardless of how many people join us for dinner, because none of our friends are as fond of them as I am. But as with money, I'd rather have too much than not enough!

Happy almost-New-Year!

Great Lakes Invitational 2008

On Sunday, Merri Su and I met up with Jay and Nate to see the finals of the Great Lakes Invitational collegiate hockey tournament. The University of Michigan earned a spot in the finals against in state rival, Michigan State University.

Jay and I were roommates in college my sophomore year. It was his senior year and he had hockey season tickets. I was able to go to a few games with Jay that year and he taught me the traditions of Michigan hockey at Yost arena (the best college hockey arena in the country, for what it's worth). It was fitting that I was able to enjoy Michigan hockey for the first time in over 3 years with Jay.


While Michigan is the reigning GLI champions, they don't often fair well in this tournament. Unfortunately, the nineteen and under World Junior Championship Tournament is played during the same time as the GLI every year. Since Michigan recruits so well, half of their best players are always absent from the GLI since they are chosen to play for the Canadian or USA hockey teams for the World Junior Championships. Three of Michigan's best players were missing this year.

No matter, Michigan was still the most talented team at the GLI tournament this year, and they showed it. They beat Michigan Tech, the host of the tournament, by a score of 5 to 0. (Little known fact, Michigan is a co-host of the tournament.) That earned them a spot in the finals against MSU. Lucky for us fans, It wasn't a challenge.

Congratulations Michigan, the 2008 GLI champions. I hope this inspires the team and they have a fantastic second half to their season. They'll need it if they want to compete for a national championship.

PS - I cheered for the MSU players that won various tournament awards and I cheered for their team when they accepted the runners-up trophy. Shame on the U of M fans that booed. We're better than that. More importantly, they're better than that and they deserve your applause. Hockey has a long tradition of exceptional sportsmanship. In fact, the following picture embodies what playoff hockey is really about. While fighting is a part of hockey, so is congratulating your opponent for a game well played.

Childhood Tailgating

My sister and I had Michigan shoved down our throats since we were tiny children, I have proof. Now do you understand why I'm such a huge Michigan fan?

Edit: The "shoved down our throats" comment was meant to be sarcastic. However, I don't think it's nice that Sara is mocking me in that photo. As you can see, I'm doing everything I can to ignore that creepy wolverine hand puppet (or whatever that thing is).