Golden Rice and Chicken Pilaf

You can pick up some tasty little goodies in the grocery store, and I'm not just talking about food. For years now I have been collecting little recipe cards, pamphlets and booklets that I thought had tasty recipes in or on them.



I have quite a collection as you can imagine. The recipes are normally quite, quite tasty. My favourites have always been the Waitrose Cards, but I have found little gems in most of the shops.



I even have some very old Robin Hood baking pamplets that I had collected when I was a girl. They're just lovely. This recipe here today came from a magazine clipping advertising chicken tenders.



I have adapted it somewhat and it is a recipe we both really enjoy. It gives us a tasty dinner on the day and then leftovers to stick in the freezer for another time. It has just enough spice to suit our tastes, with middle eastern flavours. The frozen peas are my addition . . . because they add colour and texture and we like them.



Quick, easy and a great way to stretch a pound of chicken, this recipe pleases on many levels. I forgot to sprinkle the chopped nuts on top today . . . so you'll just have to imagine how pretty it is with them added!




*Golden Rice and Chicken Pilaf*Serves 4
Printable Recipe

This is a quickie dish that I adapted some years ago from one of those booklets you pick up in the grocery store. It's delicious and always more than welcome.

2 tsp oil
1 pound fresh chicken tenders (or the equivalent of boneless, skinless chicken breast,
cut into strips, crossways)
1 medium onion, peeled and chopped
210g of uncooked regular long grain rice (1 cup)
1 medium carrot, peeled and grated
1 fat clove of garlic, peeled and minced
a handful of sultana raisins
a handful of chopped dried apricots
1 heaped tsp of curry powder (I use a medium strength)
1 tsp ground coriander
1/4 tsp salt
500ml of chicken broth
white pepper to taste
a handful of frozen petit pois
to garnish:
chopped toasted almonds or pistachio nuts

Heat the oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat until hot. Add the chicken and onion. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the chicken is browned and the onion is softened. Stir in the rice, spices and the carrot and garlic. Cook for a few minutes until very fragrant. Stir in the fruit and broth, mixing all together well. Bring to the boil, then cover and reduce the heat to low. Cook, covered for about 15 minutes, until the chicken is cooked through, the rice is tender and all the liquid has been absorbed. Take off the heat, stir in the petit pois and set aside, covered, for about 5 minutes. Fluffy up the rice and serve immediately, garnished with some toasted nuts if desired.



Over in The Cottage today, Aunt Fern's Coconut Cookies.

Italian Rice Croquettes aka Rice Balls aka Arancini – Back by Popular Demand… Aunt Angela and Uncle Bill D’Arduini!

I just flew back from New York, and boy, are my jokes tired (as you’ll hear). So is everything else, and there’s no rest for the weary as I pack for a quick trip to see the team at Allrecipes.com in Seattle. So, time is short, and I’m posting this incredibly delicious Italian rice croquette recipe, sans extra wordy article.

There isn’t much to add anyway; what you see is what you get. This great appetizer was filmed at a recent family dinner at my Aunt Angela and Uncle Billy D’Arduini’s, and if they sound familiar, they should! They’ve been featured on the blog numerous times; in such smash hit recipes as, Cabbage Rolls, Chicken D’Arduini, and Homemade Pasta.

You can definitely do this recipe completely vegetarian, by skipping the giblets, or switch those out for almost any other cooked meat. Sausage, prosciutto, or ham are just a few of the many options.

When it comes to the rice, we used a standard long rain, and went with a 2 parts water to 1 part rice ratio. You want fully hydrated and completely cooked grain. Al dente rice is not going to work here. Slightly overcooked is not a problem.

Anyway, I'd like to thank Aunt Angela and Uncle Bill for sharing their recipe, and I hope you can give it a try soon. It would be a great addition to any party menu. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

*Sorry, I never found out how many this makes, but I’m guessing about 70-80

2 pounds cooked chicken giblets (gizzards and hearts)

2 cups rice cooked in 4 cups salted water

2 cups grated Parmesan cheese

2 tbsp parsley, optional

1/4 cup breadcrumbs

2 large eggs

1/2 cup marinara sauce

salt and pepper to taste

plain breadcrumbs, as needed

vegetable oil for frying

lemon wedges

Gumbo a Go Go – Duck, Andouille Sausage, Smoked Pork Hock, Gulf Shrimp and Langoustine Gumbo

It’s not easy to pry gumbo-making secrets from a cook in New Orleans, but you should have better luck if you slip them some truth serum, in the form of several well-made sazeracs. 

This particular gumbo, featuring duck, andouille sausage, smoked pork hock, gulf shrimp, and langoustine, was inspired by my recent trip to New Orleans, where I sampled a half-dozen varieties.

One rye whiskey-induced tip was to cook the famous Cajun roux in some duck fat instead of the more common and mundane vegetable oil. The roux is the soul of the gumbo and one of the challenges of this recipe is giving the fat and flour enough time to turn into that deep brick red-brown color.

My little trick here is to add a couple extra spoons of flour after the roux is browned. The dark roux gives the gumbo its signature flavor, but it doesn’t have much thickening power. I just cooked it a couple minutes, and then stirred in the stock.

Another tweak is using pickled okra instead of fresh or frozen. This particular perversion was born out of necessity rather than some brilliant thought on my part. Of course, if this technique catches on, that story will change. The pickled okra gave the gumbo a great flavor and added a little bit of acidity, which is always welcome in something this substantial.

This can be made with hundreds of different combinations of smoked meats, game, poultry, and seafood; and in my opinion, the more the merrier. As usual, I’d love to hear about any variations you may come up with. As you’ll see, the procedure is pretty straightforward, although you’re talking about a full day’s project. This is a dish that takes time, but I still hope you give it a try. Enjoy!

2 duck legs

1 tbsp vegetable oil, more as needed

1 cup flour, plus 2 tbsp for second addition
6 cups chicken broth

1 pound andouille sausage

1 large onion, chopped

4 green onions chopped

1 cup celery, chopped

1 cup diced peppers (any combination of sweet and hot)

1 cup diced tomatoes

1/2 tsp dried thyme

1 bay leaf

1 tsp black pepper

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper, or to taste

1 smoked pork hock
2 cups water, or as needed
1 cup sliced okra, fresh, frozen or pickled
1 pound gulf shrimp
1 pound crawfish tail meat or langoustine
rice to garnish

Black Sesame Ice Cream Mochi

Making ice cream mochi has been on my to-do list for ages, ever since I got back from Hong Kong last year and really missed the readily available ones there. Mochi is the word for pounded glutinous rice, and ice cream is wrapped in a thin dough made of this which is deliciously sticky and a bit gooey. I used to eat them a lot when I was kid, in a variety of flavours but I haven't yet found a reasonably priced version here. I was put off by all of the recipes making the dough in a microwave, as I don't have one, but the craving for mochi became too much and I ploughed on with a trusty saucepan.



It was quite hard work. The flour was added to the water and as it needs a bit of cooking, a lot of vigorous stirring and unladylike swearing ensued to make sure it didn't stick to the pan like shit to a blanket. The dough was then flopped out to a well floured surface to squidge it into a vaguely uniform thin sheet; I cursed the boiling hot dough scalding my fingers and left it to cool to later wrap the ice cream up into.



I left an unholy mess behind. Of the mochi? I managed to make a grand total of 6 misshapen balls, delicious filled with black sesame ice cream. It is entirely possible I need more practise. And possibly to buy a microwave.



The black sesame ice cream worked a treat though, and came out a dramatic grey-black colour which I loved but some were put off by it.





Black Sesame Ice Cream



200ml whipping cream

350ml semi skimmed milk

2 egg yolks

80gr sugar

7 tbsp black sesame seeds (rather a random amount but I added incrementally till I got the right flavour)

1 tsp vanilla



Whisk the egg yolks with the sugar until they become creamy. Toast the black sesame seeds and grind finely. Add to the milk, then add the cream and heat till it comes to just under boiling and take off the heat. Add the vanilla and leave to infuse for half an hour. Add a few spoonfuls of the milk mixture to the eggs and stir well. Keep adding until all is incorporated, and then put back on a low heat, stirring and heating until it has thickened - do not let it boil. It should resemble custard. Strain the sesame seeds out and put the mixture in the fridge to cool thoroughly before churning into ice cream in your maker.



Mochi Ice Cream



70gr glutinous rice flour (you can buy this in Chinatown)

40gr sugar

1 tsp vanilla

100ml water

Ice cream

Loads of cornstarch



Using an ice cream scoop (or a melon scoop for smaller), make balls of ice cream and freeze them well.



If you have a microwave, place the dough ingredients into a bowl, mix well and cover. Nuke for 2 mins on medium, then stir and cook for one more. Mix well, it should turn shiny and smooth. Alternatively, place all of the above in a non-stick saucepan and prepare to stir like hell, heating it well and cooking for about 5 minutes.



Use plenty of cornflour on your work surface and flop your dough out onto it. It should be pliable but not too sloppy. Using your fingers, carefully push the dough out to make a thin sheet. Cut circles out of it with a pint glass and freeze the circles for half an hour. Wrap the ice cream balls in the mochi dough and freeze again.



Then clean your kitchen...

Shu Castle

The Old Kent Road has long been a bit of a mystery to me. I often catch buses trundling along, depositing me at my flat at the end of it, and as I gaze upon rows and rows of derelict-looking shops, I'm struck by what a shit-hole most of it is. But a diamond shines in the rough, as we found out when we visited Shu Castle on Friday night. I suspect it is part of Dragon Castle nearby, our stalwart dim sum joint and when we arrived it was almost full.



A short, neat menu with pictures of dishes was presented to us, and I was surprised to find most of the usual crowd-pleasing dishes were missing. It was Sichuan only and this pleased me. After much panic and self-restraint, we settled on a few dishes. Firstly, century eggs with sliced green chillis was doused with sesame oil and was super spicy. The eggs aren't as terrifying as they look; being buried in alkaline clay gives them that appearance, but they are creamy and mild.



Sliced chicken in chilli oil was cold yet mouth-warming. The chicken flesh was firm but tender, the skin pleasingly gelatinous.



White gourd and sliced pork soup was not made with winter melon as I thought it would be, but rather Chinese turnip (daikon). Simple and cleansing, it reminded me of soups my grandmother served when I was a child, at the start of the meal to aid digestion. I found it quite addictive.



Pickled green beans with pork and chilli was a vast portion and the tangy greens mixed with the savoury pork was perfect mixed into our bowls of rice. The beef in chilli came with a warning from our waitress, but we soldiered on. Strips of beef were velveted and as a result were really tender, bobbing around in a broth that was distinctly lacking in Sichuan peppercorn numbness but more than made up for it in chilli punch. A dish of boiled dumplings with chilli oil were slightly dull.



With service, food the three of us and a few beers each reached the grand total of £76 big ones. A total bargain really, especially as I got to take the leftover minced pork and pickled green beans to mix it with some steamed rice and top with a fried egg the next day. A very decent lunch indeed.



I sense a return visit in my very near future, mainly to try the shrimp in salted egg yolk and the crispy sea bass dishes. Oh! And they have a hot plate embedded into the tables. Steamboat ahoy. The toilets are disgusting though.



Shu Castle



194 Old Kent Road,

London,

SE1 5TY



Tel: 020 7703 9797

Hainan Chicken Rice

Though Hainan chicken rice would suggest the dish is Chinese, it's massively popular in Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. A lot of people don't get the point of it, and I don't blame them; essentially, it is just whole poached chicken. Chicken with flabby skin. But it's so much more. The chicken, poached till just done gets a plunging in an ice bath, making the skin and flesh firm and bouncy. The resultant broth is served along side garlicky rice cooked in a little chicken fat, a gingery chilli sauce enlivening and colouring the plate. So simple, but so comforting and delicious.

I grew up on this dish, and the best version to this date was at The Shangri-La hotel in Singapore, aged around 8. I remember it vividly, the silken grains of rice flavoured liberally with chicken fat, the broth soothing.


I haven't seen many versions in London; the one nearest in Croydon serves the dish without broth, a heresy in my view. So I decided to make it myself.

Hainan Chicken Rice

Serves 4

1 whole chicken (mine was 1.2kg)
5 spring onions
5 slices of ginger, about an inch thick
A few handfuls of flaked salt, not table salt
Enough water to cover the chicken in a pot

Firstly, get the handfuls of salt and exfoliate the chicken. Yes. Grab the salt and rub the skin vigourously to get rid of any pimply feathery bits. Rinse the chicken. Stuff the spring onions and garlic into the cavity. Put into the stockpot with the water and bring to the simmer, skimming off any scum that accumulates. Simmer gently for 35 - 45 mins for a chicken of my size. Remove and plunge immediately into an iced bath. This stops the cooking process and makes the flesh nice and firm.

For the rice:

400gr rice
3 cloves of garlic
1" of ginger
1 stalk of spring onion

In a frying pan, heat some oil and add the ginger and garlic, minced. Fry slowly until fragrant. Bung into your rice cooker with your rice and use the chicken stock, trying to get as much chicken fat in as possible, to cook it. Or use whatever method you do to cook rice. When done, sprinkle with chopped spring onion.


Chilli sauce

6 mild red chillis, 1 burn-your-face-off hot chilli
2 inches of ginger
4 cloves of garlic
Juice of 1 lime
A pinch of salt

Place the above in a whizzer and whizz til smooth.

To serve; chop up the chicken with the bones and all and serve with a bowl of rice, a little chilli sauce, and a bowl of broth.

I got snazzy new crockery sent to me by Ink Dish. Aint it pretty?

Spanish-Style Seafood Rice

I hesitate to call it paella, even though that's what it was intended to be. We didn't follow a recipe, but rather made it up as I went along, and it wasn't even cooked in a paella pan. So instead, let's call it Spanish-style seafood rice.

After a scorching weekend in the sun, we fancied something light yet comforting. A big delicious Pimms-fuelled lunch by the riverside at The Ship in Wandsworth knocked us out; after a quick lie-down on Clapham Common, we headed back home South East, raiding the shops on the way to knock this up.


The subtle saffron flavour in the rice, pepped up with the paprika smokiness of the chorizo and the freshness of the lemon gives this dish a really summery feel. White fish, added at the last minute to just cook through isn't the most strongly flavoured meat but a tin of smoked mussels bought on a last minute whim added an extra seafood oompf.

Spanish-Style Seafood Rice

Serves 5

500gr paella rice
1 onion, diced
7 cloves of garlic, minced
2l fish stock
150ml white wine
1 tsp thyme
5 tbsp chopped parsley
A large pinch of saffron
150gr chorizo
400gr firm white fish - we used cod
1 tin of smoked mussels
1 lemon
1 bulb of fennel, sliced thinly
2 sweet red pointed peppers, chopped roughly
100gr cherry tomatoes
1 tsp paprika

Heat the fish stock so that it is at a very gentle simmer. Add the saffron strands. In a large pan, heat the oil from the tin of smoked mussels and add the onion and garlic and cook on a low heat. After 10 minutes, add the paprika. Chop the chorizo roughly and add to the pan, along with the thyme. Once the chorizo has released its oils, add the rice and stir to cover. Add the white wine and simmer until it has been absorbed. Add the sweet peppers and the fennel, then add 1.5l of the stock. Simmer on a low heat for 10 minutes. If it's looking dry, add more stock. Don't stir it too much or the rice will go mushy.

Next, chop the fish into large chunks and halve the cherry tomatoes. Add both to the pan, stir very carefully and cook for another 5 minutes. Take off the heat, scatter the parsley over the dish and put the lid on, leaving to stand for 5 minutes. Taste for seasoning - I found it needed an aggressive hand with salt - before serving with lemon wedges.

Le Wei Xiang, Lewisham

Good God, my friends are difficult to get together. Way back in December, we arranged to visit Le Wei Xiang in Lewisham, a restaurant that seemed to specialise in far more than your average neighbourhood Chinese restaurant. Four attempts later, and with only half the originally intended group, we finally got there.

So, straight to the 'genuine Chinese tastes' section. Our party of 5 kept shouting random orders: "tripe! I want the tripe!" so in the end, it was just easier to write a list of numbers. One of the first to arrive was the cold tofu, steeped in a mixture of soy sauce and black vinegar, garnished with chopped preserved duck egg, spring onion and coriander. One of my favourite dishes of the evening, it was cool, creamy and flavoursome. The egg isn't as strong as you might think; it's jelly-liked textures and mild flavour was liked by all.

Lamb skewers were, dare I say it, better than Silk Road's. Juicy, pink meat, the cubes didn't alternate with crispy lumps of fat as in the aforementioned, but each piece was generously fatty. Alongside a dusting of cumin, these were marinaded with fennel seeds and had a caramel-like sweetness to them. I could have eaten the whole plate.

Sliced sea bass with preserved vegetable was a behemoth of a pot. Bobbing in the broth was silky slices of fish. At first, it tasted slightly bland, but blandness turned to comfort when spooned over a bowlful of rice.

Cucumbers in chilli oil were garlicky, spicy and wildly addictive.

Double cooked pork Sichuan style wasn't as spicy as I'd hoped but the pork was well seasoned and tender. Potato shreds with Sichuan pepper (opening photo) were properly and utterly mouth numbing. Other dishes such as aubergine with minced pork and cold noodles in 'sauce' were fairly unexciting but well made but one total failure of a dish was pigs blood and tofu soup, which managed to taste of absolutely nothing with a hint of dishwater. It was left untouched.

For £17 a head with (sweet and friendly) service and a couple of beers, we were all stuffed to the brim. I think for the money, Silk Road perhaps edges it slightly, but Silk Road doesn't do that tofu dish. And Silk Road doesn't deliver to my house...

Le Wei Xiang

80 Lee High Rd,
London SE13 5PT

Tel: 020 8318 2525

Street Food in Bangkok

We found it fairly difficult to find street food that weren't noodle soups in Bangkok. This was no bad thing; we often started our day with a bowl of thick, hor-fun noodles and a choice of duck or goose. Chillis steeped in fish sauce and a little deep fried garlic ensured we'd be carried through till lunchtime. But where were all these som tams, the laab salads, and curries galore? Perhaps we didn't look hard enough; after our binge in Penang our palates were a touch jaded.

But what a way to liven up the tastebuds with a searingly hot seafood salad (above). Raw prawns, squid and little clams were selected from a big tray of ice and dumped briefly in boiling water, before being fished out and then added to a plate. Tomatoes, strips of raw onion, lime, fish sauce and garlic are pounded in a pestle and mortar, then added to the seafood. It was a slow-building heat, leading to proper fire in the mouth.

Our first night saw us meeting up with @NicolaChilton for some street-side eats. It's always great to be taken around a new place by a local, even though you've never met before and Nicola took us for some cracking pork noodles. We then headed off to Soi 38 off Sukumvit, to sample Pad Thai cooked ferociously in a wok, packed full of vegetables and allegedly made with condensed milk. The vegetables had a great crunch and a lovely, smoky flavour to it, without the sticky sweetness you get in London Thai restaurants.

We finished off with sticky rice and mango. The mango was soft and deliciously sweet, while the intensely coconut flavoured rice was light, not like the dense, rich examples I was used to. Outstanding eats.

Another food highlight of our trip was stumbling upon a street food vendor near the Khao San Road. Not a word of English was spoken, and in the end we resorted to pointing at another table's food with a thumbs up. A pork laab, heavy on the shallots and topped with toasted crunchy rice was accompanied with a little plastic bag of sticky rice. Tom yum soup, also with pork, came as a big vat. Sour, spicy and savoury all at once, it was as good as I've ever had it.

Staggering around Chatuchak Market with a raging hangover was pretty painful. The biggest open air market in Asia, it was heaving and hot. I took refuge at a bright cafe, and all they served were Isaan-style salads and Thai sausages. Deep fried chicken tossed with shredded papaya, chilli and limes took the edge off the Sangsom head I was sporting.

It wasn't all good. Intrigued by the 'broccoli and mozzerella pie' and the dessert 'corn pie' in McDonald's, we ordered both to try out. Both were fucking disgusting. We weren't hugely surprised.

Koba

I love Korean food, but it's not often I go out for a Korean meal. For a start, I find it pretty scandalous how London restaurants can charge for assorted kimchi, essential for any Korean meal, which is unheard of in Korea or indeed many other places. We were charged £5.90 for this little lot.

But, no matter as the soondubu jiggae, a spicy stew of barely set tofu and seafood (tiny little mussels, prawns and octopus) was bloody delicious. Served with a bowl of steamed rice, this was a gorgeous meal of textures and worth returning for alone. It's not as horrifyingly spicy as it looks but deeply flavoursome.


Oh! And there was a perfectly poached egg nestling inside, enriching the broth nicely as my chopsticks speared the eggy sphere. It was so comforting I was finished in mere minutes, burning my tongue in the process.


A spring onion pancake, packed with mainly octopus and squid was crunchy yet squidgy, pretty addictive stuff.

It's not a cheap lunch, coming to around £15 but I know for sure I'll be coming back for that jiggae.

Koba

11 Rathbone Place
London W1T 1 NA

Tel: 0207 580 8825

Tonkatsu

Tonkatsu wouldn't be my first choice when at a Japanese restaurant. Often, there are more exciting dishes on offer; tempura, sashimi, udon noodles. But the craving took me and I wanted deep fried pork. Badly. The crunch of the breadcrumbed exterior, giving way to the juicy meat inside played on my mind all morning, and I impatiently waited for lunchtime.


A particularly thick loin fillet was butterflied to a heart shape. Deviating from tradition, I marinaded it in soy, ginger and mirrin overnight which gave the meat a fragrance uncommon in tonkatsu. Marinade brushed off, the meat was flopped into flour, slid into beaten egg, and the process repeated until it's final liberal peppering with panko breadcrumbs. This double egg and flour method ensures a nice thick and crunchy crust.

Simply drizzled with (bought) tonkatsu sauce and accompanied by spinach dressed with sesame sauce and some shichimi-dusted steamed rice, I was only annoyed I didn't have the foresight to make double; a tonkatsu sandwich would have been the best packed lunch ever.

Tonkatsu

Serves 2

2 pork loin fillets
2 cloves of garlic
1" piece of ginger
1 tbsp mirin
2 tbsp light soy sauce
1 egg
Plain flour
Panko breadcrumbs
Vegetable oil - enough for deep-frying

If the loin fillets are thick, butterfly them or bash with a rolling pin to make thinner. Place in a dish or a ziplock bag and cover with the mirin and soy sauce. Mince the ginger and lightly crush the garlic and add to the marinade. Leave overnight or at least for several hours.

Lay out a dish of flour, a dish of breadcrumbs and a bowl of beaten egg. Brush the garlic and ginger off the fillets. Dip the meat firstly in the flour, then the egg, then the flour and the egg again. Lastly, place in the breadcrumbs ensuring even coverage. Repeat with the other fillet. Heat the vegetable oil in a wok until shimmering - it's hot enough when a breadcrumb sizzles in it. Place the pork in the oil one at a time, cooking until you get a deep rich brown on each side - around 6 - 7 minutes. Place on a wire rack to drain while you cook the other.

Drizzle with tonkatsu sauce; if you can't get this, I reckon HP mixed with ketchup (a 2:1 ratio) would make a decent substitute.

Valentine's Special: Average Betty and Fabio Sexy-Up Chicken and Rice!

I'm still in West Chester, PA, after a fascinating day of training at QVC. Since I have no new video recipe to share, I'll have to do the next best thing, and use somebody else's. 

Here's my buddy Sara from Average Betty getting all female on international playboy, and Top Chef All-Star, Fabio Viviani, who in return gets all Fabio on her. Together they bring you a rustic Chicken Marsala recipe served with an unusual, but erotically charged Strawberry Champagne Risotto. This menu is so Fabio and Average Betty, it hurts.

I've posted my slightly less steamy version below, and it's one of the recipes I always recommend for Valentines Day, especially for new cooks. It's fast, easy, and always impresses that special someone. I hope you enjoy both videos!

Be sure to check out the full blog post on Average Betty, which includes recipes and lots more information! 

Chef John's Chicken Marsala


See Chef John's original Chicken Marsala post here, and get all the ingredients and more info.

Black Eyed Peas with Pork and Greens – Good Luck with This!

I love the New Year's day tradition of eating beans and greens to bring luck and prosperity. This video was posted a few years back, and features black-eyed peas, and not one, but three kinds of pork. How can that not bring good fortune?

This is a very old tradition, and I don't mean colonial America old, I mean really, really old. There are records of black-eyed peas being eaten for good luck on New Year's Day all the way back to ancient Babylonia. It must have worked, because look at all the good fortune that has befallen the middle east since then. Okay, maybe that's not the best example.

This video recipe is my variation on something called "Hoppin' John," which is black-eyed peas, rice, and pork stewed together, usually served with some kind of greens and cornbread. Speaking of which, I highly suggest clicking on my cornbread recipe video and doing this thing right.

I want to wish you all a Happy New Year! May your 2011 be filled with much happiness, and lots of new adventures. Stay safe, party hard, and as always, enjoy!



Ingredients:
1 pound black-eyed peas, soaked overnight
3 strips bacon, sliced in 1/2-inch pieces
1 pound pork neck bones
6 oz smoked ham, diced
1 cup diced onion
1 cup diced celery
1 cup diced carrot
3 cloves chopped garlic
6 cups water
1 (10-oz can) diced tomato with green chilis
1 tsp salt
1 bay leaf
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp black pepper
cayenne to taste
1 tsp dried thyme
1 large bunch kale, leaves torn
cooked rice