Hoppin' John

I'm originally from Texas, but I never had Hoppin' John (a supposedly traditional Southern New Year's dish) until I moved to Massachusetts. Now I like to make it every year - and it's really easy to make vegan. My version usually uses spinach instead of collard greens, just because it's what I have on hand, and veggie sausage. This year I included carrots because I have a bunch in the fridge, and it added a nice sweetness.

Ingredients

brown rice

black-eyed peas (1 c dried makes about 2-3 c cooked)

water to cover the peas

1 T powdered veggie broth (I get mine in bulk at Whole Foods)

1 t smoked paprika

2 t cumin

4 links veggie sausage, diced

1 onion, diced

2 carrots, diced

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 pkg frozen spinach

2 T Bragg's liquid aminos

2 T nutritional yeast

black pepper to taste

Method

After soaking peas for about 8 hours, drain and rinse well, then return to your pot. Add enough water to cover by at least 2 inches, then add your (salt-free!) veg broth powder, cumin, and paprika. Bring to boil, lower heat, and simmer for about an hour.

Meanwhile, cook your brown rice.

About half an hour before the peas are done, start preparing the rest of the ingredients. First, in a large sauté pan, brown your veggie sausage in a little cooking oil. Remove from pan, give it a wipe (or not), add a little cooking oil, and sauté your onion and carrots until softened. Add your spinach and a ladle or two of the cooking water from your peas and stir. Cover and simmer until the spinach is cooked. Add your sausage and mix well, then set aside until the peas are done. Once they're finished, combine your veggies and sausage with your peas. At this point, you may want to remove some of the water -- it depends on how much liquid you started with and how soupy you want the final product to be. I went for a stew-like consistency rather than a soup, but it's up to you.

Season the whole thing with Bragg's, nooch, and black pepper to taste and serve over brown rice (or mix the rice in with everything else if you like).

Brown bread in the bread machine

I love my bread machine. It's an Oster 5838 ExpressBake Breadmaker that I've had for a number of years. The best thing about it? I can make homemade bread in an hour. Seriously! The ExpressBake setting works really well. There were only 3 recipes in the 1-hour ExpressBake section of the instruction book, though, so I haven't used that setting as often as I would like. Recently I decided to attempt to modify one of the recipes (the Onion Soup bread) to make a whole wheat version, and it turned out great! If you try this in a regular breadmaker, I can't guarantee that it will turn out right, but here it is for posterity.

1 c + 2 T hot water (115-125 F)

2 T oil

2 T blackstrap molasses (the healthiest sweetener)

1 c bread flour

1 3/4 c whole wheat flour

1/4 c oats

1 t salt

2 T ground flaxseed

4 1/2 t quick rise yeast

Place all ingredients in bread maker in order shown, making sure that the yeast does not come into contact with any wet ingredients. Set breadmaker on ExpressBake 58-minute setting and hit start. Let cool completely before slicing!