Hoppin' John for Good Luck in the New Year

Happy 2013!  Any good New Year's celebration calls for a yummy bowl of Hoppin' John.  For those of you not in "the know," Hoppin' John is a southern dish traditionally served on New Year's Day to bring a prosperous year filled with luck (the black-eyed peas are symbolic of pennies or coins).  Here's my recipe so you can get your good luck on for 2013...

Ingredients
Step 1:
1 lb of dried black eyed peas
1 ham hock
1 onion, halved
3 bay leaves
3 cloves of garlic
6 cups of water

Step 2:
5 tbl butter
1 onion, diced
3 ribs of celery, sliced
1 green pepper, diced
1 jalapeno pepper, diced with seeds 
3 cloves of garlic, diced 
1/2 tsp of fresh thyme
6 links of precooked Andouille sausage
1 cup of rice
2 1/2 cups of water

Preparation
1. Combine all of the ingredients in Step 1 in a large stock pot.  Bring to a boil, cover and  simmer on low heat  for 2.5 - 3 hours until the peas are tender, but not mushy.  Stir occasionally.

2.  Once the peas are fully cooked, remove the ham hock, onions, garlic, and bay leaves.

3.  Drain the peas and reserve the liquid.

4.  Dice the onions, celery, jalapenos, garlic, and green pepper.  Melt the butter in the Dutch oven over medium-high heat and then add all the vegetables you just diced.  Cook until onion is translucent and tender (about 8-10 minutes). 

5.  Add fresh thyme (no stems, just leaves!) and saute for 1 minute.  Preheat oven to 375.

6.  Add 1 cup of uncooked rice and 2 1/2 cups of water.  Bring to a boil, cover and simmer for 20 minutes until the rice is fully cooked.

7.  While the rice is cooking, bake the precooked Andouille sausage in the oven for 10 minutes until heated through (I used the precooked because I am lazy, but you can use the fresh kind and start this step while the peas are cooking).

8.  Slice and dice your Andouille sausage.

9.  After the rice is cooked, add the black-eyed peas to the Dutch oven.  I like to add 1/3 at a time, stir and then add another 1/3, etc till all the peas are added.  Add any reserved cooking liquid if needed to loosen up the dish.  I had to add about 1/4 of a cup.

10.  Add the Andouille sausage to the Dutch oven.

 
11.  Hoppin' John is ready!  Spoon into a dish and garnish with hot sauce if desired (I always do)

Raise a fork to good luck in 2013!
 

Cheese and Beer at Churchkey

I love restaurants with a little specialty focus, especially when that specialty is beer.  I have heard a lot of great things about Churchkey's beer menu, so I decided it was time to try it out (along with some food!).

Churchkey is the upstairs, scaled-down version of it's sister restaurant Birch and Barley.  It's more of a pub/bar scene with simple, low-key food.  The seating is first come, first serve at Churchkey so if you want to get a seat without waiting, I recommend you show up early as the place fills up quickly on a weekend.  The layout is open and spacious with low lighting, deep, rich red walls, and large butcher tables next to floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the street.  It definitely has a cool, hip vibe.  Wear your trendy hat, you'll need it.

The beer menu at Churchkey is a book.  Seriously, it's about 20 pages.  19 more than the food menu.  And the draft menu is 2 pages.  They even include on the beer menu what type of glass the beer is served in (e.g., tulip) and the temperature at which the beer is served.  It can be a little overwhelming.  So I focused on the draft menu.  After much deliberation, I selected DC Brau's The Rider.  It was hoppy with a little Belgian flavor, absolutely delicious.

To accompany our beer, we opted for a few appetizers from the menu -- the disco fries and the mac and cheese sticks.

Meat and cheese on fries... oh my!

The disco fries were hands-down, the best fry basket I've ever had... the cheese and sausage gravy topping could have gone terribly wrong (think goopy cheese whiz mess) and it didn't.  It rocked.  Or rather "discoed." It was just the right balance of saucy topping on the fries and was DELICIOUS!  

Mozzarella sticks, but with mac and cheese... interesting

The mac and cheese sticks were good as well, a light crispy outside with yummy mac and cheese on the inside.  The mac and cheese could have been a little more creamy on the inside (maybe add a layer of cheese on top of the mac inside the crispy shell?) but generally, it was darn tasty!

More cheese please!

Since I clearly had not met my cheese quota for the evening, I went for the grilled cheese sandwich for dinner.  The truffled grilled cheese sandwich was gooey and creamy with a smooth truffle flavor to accompany the cheese.  It was served with a side of tomato soup dip, which really didn't do anything for me.  It was a cool idea, but I think it should be a little more creamy and light for dipping the sandwich. It sorta just tasted like pureed tomatoes to me.  The hand-made potato chips were crispy but a little bland.  They could definitely benefit from some salt or malt flavoring.  It was a good dinner, but it could have been a little more flavorful.

Overall, the beer at Churchkey is fantastic - great seasonal selection and so many options to choose from.  The food was good as well but, you can tell Churchkey spends more time on their beer menu than their food menu (there's only so many hours in the day!).  I believe my man over at the Midnight Raver Blog (who joined us for dinner) summed it up best "This shit is goooooooo.....D, man!"  He's so articulate....