Start your new year on the right foot

I was gonna take the week off y'all. Really, I was. But when I looked at the calendar, I realized that we here in the South have certain culinary obligations, which may or may not be carrying the rest of this godless world on our greens-and-peas eating shoulders.

I can make a great pot of greens, but for years the peas bedeviled me. I didn't want a pot of plain, or even plain-seeming legumes. A few years back I started tinkering with a stew of peas, soup veggies, and tomatoes, to brighten things up and tie it all together. It's getting better every year, and this year, I threw in some of those slow roasted roma tomatoes with ginger, garlic, coriander, and cumin. It will fill you with optimism for 2021, and has the greens in there to boot.

Of course, if you prefer your greens in the form of a baby bok choi salad, I can make that happen too: it's got crunchy kohlrabi, roasted sweet potatoes, and a toasty, salty, funky vinaigrette of roasted peanuts, preserved lemons, and spices. I'm marinating some tofu in the same vinaigrette to meet your protein needs. 

And the cornbread above is nothing too special: just the Lee brothers' recipe, with artistic swirls of sorghum on top. Anyone can make it. Don't have sorghum? Pick up some sorghum butter!

And that's it! I'm taking the rest of the week to work on exciting new plans for the first of the year. I can't wait to tell y'all about them. I'll be delivering Thursday, per usual and I've got a LOT of soups and 'roles in the freezer, so don't worry if you're running low on leftovers, I got you.