Crock Pot Black-eyed Pea Soup

Last August, when I turned the kitchen into a cannery, we ate a lot of salads and sandwiches. In December, I made the kitchen over into a bakery, and routinely employed the crock pot for preparing our meals.

I had never used a crock pot until about 4 years ago. Pritchard Parker used to cringe when he saw me pulling the thing out and I admit I did make some pretty horrific concoctions with it. I have always tried to learn from my failures in the kitchen and thus I learned how to use the crock pot. Some things I learned are: you don't have to use nearly as much, if any, liquid as conventional cooking; less seasoning is needed; if you use a can of "cream of" soup, your finished product will be ugly; the simpler the better. In the few next days, I shall share some of my successes with the crock pot.

Black-eyed Pea Soup
1 pound dry black-eyed peas
1 large onion, diced
3-4 stalks celery, sliced
3-4 medium potatoes, peeled (if needed), cut into chunks
4 slices bacon
2 cans Ro*Tel diced tomatoes and green chilis
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Inspect peas for any small stones or other foreign debris. Place peas in a colander and rinse very thoroughly in hot water. Drain, then place peas into the crock pot. Cover with water to about an inch over the top of the peas. Cook on low for 3 to 4 hours.

Cook the bacon, in a large skillet, until crisp, then drain on paper towels. In the pan drippings, fry the onions, celery, and potatoes over medium high heat until beginning to brown. Once the black-eyed peas are tender, add the potato mixture to the crock pot along with the bacon.

Add the Ro*Tel tomatoes and salt and pepper, to taste, to the crock pot. Cover and cook on low for 4 to 5 hours.

Sweet and Hot Glazed Pecans

It's hard to stop eating these sweet and hot nuts, once you get started. I consider these the Piece de resistance of my Christmas baking season. You can call them pi khans, pi cans, pee khans, or pee cans, even us Southerners can't agree on that one. Whatever you want to call them, it wouldn't be Christmas for me without lots of pecans.

Sweet and Hot Glazed Pecans
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup water
2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cayenne pepper
4 cups pecan halves

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a large, heavy cookie sheet. In a large saucepan, over medium heat, combine the sugar, water, salt, and cayenne pepper. Stir until sugar dissolves and mixture comes to a boil. Boil 2 minutes. Remove from heat, add pecans and stir until they are coated with the mixture. Spread evenly onto the prepared pan. Bake until pecans are just starting to brown, 12 to 15 minutes.

Transfer to parchment paper, wax paper, or brown paper, (not paper towels - they will stick) and separate the pecans. Cool completely.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas

My Ideal Chocolate Chip Cookie

This is a perfect cookie, in my opinion. They are so pretty with their crackled tops. If you eat around the edges, you'll find them to be crunchy and crisp, then when you get to the center they become chewy. A sweet treat filled with bittersweet chocolate.

A heavy-duty stand mixer, which I do not have, would greatly ease the preparation of this cookie, as it is a very dense dough. It just takes me a little longer to make my cookies, while I work in all the flour by hand--sometimes literally by (clean) hand. An old-timey tip, from the days when all cooks made their cookies the way I do, is to sift your flour before measuring.

Chocolate Chip Cookies
1 cup butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 cup light brown sugar, packed
2 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
3 cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. hot water
1/2 tsp. salt
2 cups bittersweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line baking pans with parchment.

Cream together butter and both sugars until smooth and creamy. Beat in eggs, one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Dissolve the baking soda in hot water and stir that in, as well as the salt. Stir in the flour and chocolate chips. The dough will be very thick.

Form dough into walnut size balls; place on the baking pan and flatten slightly. Bake for about 10 minutes, rotating pans half way through baking, until edges are beginning to brown. Remove to racks to cool.

Sand Tarts

We know this lovely cookie by many names--Mexican Wedding Cookies, Russian Teacakes, Snowballs, and more. Often they are crescent shaped, sometimes flattened into discs. I have seen them made with cinnamon sugar rather than confectioner's sugar and walnuts, not pecans. Also, I've have seen them sprinkled, or dusted with sugar, rather than being completely immersed like I make them.

I came to know them, as a girl, as Sand Tarts. I don't recall my Mother or any of the other bakers of the family making them but some of my friends' mothers did and I fell in love with this cookie.

This recipe is in my handwriting as a 17 year old, which was, ahem, quite a few years ago. I still bring it out every Christmas and I have never tried another variation on this cookie. They are melt-in-your-mouth delicious!