Good morning friend! Welcome to the early am! I'm so glad you are with me! You ARE with me, right? I thought so! This week at Loaves and Dishes, we've had so many fun recipes! Some I know you'll need for the New Year like this Collard Greens recipe (I show you how to clean them too!) or this Blackeyed peas recipe (it's easy when they come from a can!). My friends from Ohio might prefer this Sauerkraut recipe and here in the south, you probably want some Cooked Cabbage with your other Southern Dishes! If you are headed out for the New Year and have to bring along a pot luck style dish, I always recommend these Candied Bacon Wrapped Little Smokies. ___________________ HOT COOKING TIP OF THE WEEK I only recently learned this cooking tip so it's not really reflected in the recipes listed above but you can use it in any recipe where you would flavor with meat or a piece of bone in meat. For example, often we use a hambone for beans. I have often used leftover chicken bones in greens or other similar recipes. You'll find smoked ham, neck bones and turkey necks if you look in the butcher section of your grocery store. They all make good soup bones but those turkey necks tend to have quite a lot of meat and flavor too! When you are getting ready to cook something like beans, before you start, boil the smoked meat/bones in some water first to soften it. Boil it until the meat is loose from the bone. Use the water to cook your beans or your greens in and toss the remaining smoked meat/bones in while it's cooking too. This ads a lot of flavor to these dishes and a little bit of meat too. Trust me, it's worth the extra effort! ________________________ THREE LITTLE THINGS
________________________ A FINAL WORD Things have been happening on the food writing front and there have been a lot of changes from things outside of my realm of influence (hello Google updates). This means that you might soon see a change in the way that Sarah and I are doing things at Loaves and Dishes. We are looking at all of our options and hoping to provide more valuable information and options to our readers soon! I can't thank you enough for being here with us for the last 9 years and we are hoping to be here for many more to come as this has really turned into a family business. Over the years you and I been through some things together like celebrating milestones, marriages, a couple of births, some family illnesses, family and pet losses. What would it have been like if we hadn't had each other? I don't want to know. Thank you for being there for me and I'm happy to have known when I was there with you from telling me about carrying my lasagna across Manhattan in a cab for a New Years celebration to private emails telling me about the loss of a spouse and how some of my recipes had been his favorite in his last years. It seems to me like you some how divinely knew when I needed to hear a word of encouragement from you. Thank you for reaching out! Step off into this New Year with a heart full of hope and knowing that you've got someone in your corner. I'm no more than an email away. Simply click "reply" to one of these newsletters and your response will come straight to my inbox. I'll reply just as fast as I can. No one will see it but me. Take care and Happy Holidays and Wishing you the Merriest of New Years! See you next week, God Willing and the Creeks Don't Rise. Love you, Wendi Unsubscribe | Update your profile | PO Box 82 , Danbury, NC 27016  |
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