For lunch today, I had leftovers: a chunk of braised pork, some black-eyed peas, and some green beans and new potatoes cooked together, with a piece of good bread to soak up the pot liquors.
As I ate, I kept thinking that the folks having lunch today at Mary Mac's Tea Room in Atlanta probably have no idea how healthy they are eating. Mary Mac's is a classic "meat and three" place, where you order a meat entrée and three vegetable sides. Thus the plate, geometrically, is one-quarter meat and three-quarters vegetables. This is the plate geometry, exactly, of a health program I have joined, and Karen has been following for quite some time, whose basic menu planning principle is: eat five servings of fruits and vegetables a day.
I blogged about this recently, as I was discovering how difficult it can be to eat five servings of fruits and vegetables a day, particularly when you are a man who does not much care for fruit in any of its raw or prepared forms. Luckily, I am a man who likes vegetables, even beets. As I have settled into the program, losing five pounds (so far) in the process, I have found myself cooking vegetables in ways I haven't cooked for years. They are old recipes, going back to my grandmother Susie's kitchen in West Texas. They are also the same recipes, basically, followed by the cooks in the meat-and-threes that you will find all over the South.
In the South, macaroni and cheese, corn soufflé, fried okra, and rice and gravy qualify as vegetables. At our house, on the program, some restrictions apply. Nothing fried, and minimal fat used in cooking. This is not a problem. I have already published my black-eyed peas recipe, which calls for two strips of bacon (for flavoring) per pound of dried black-eyes, and you can even get around that if you use the scorched (almost) onion and leftover coffee technique. The green beans and new potatoes act the same way. Ears of corn, you just shuck, boil, cool, and eat off the ears (I eat in rows, typewriter-style), or slice off the kernels and mix into all sorts of preparations. Spinach, you just soften some onion and garlic in a bit of olive oil, stack in the fresh spinach, and swirl it until it melts almost away.
I love spinach that way, and it is a huge bang for the buck in the program. A serving is one cup, and four cups of fresh spinach cook way down. Dried beans and peas are good, too, because they are half a cup per serving. I don't care how much you like them, three cups of vegetables on a plate is a lot of food, which is of course the idea. The more veggies you eat, the less meat there is room for. So things like spinach and beans give you a little wiggle room.
For green beans and new potatoes, I like to get the frozen package, about a pound and a half, of haricots verts, which are skinny, stringless green beans, at Trader Joe's. Then get a pound of small red potatoes and slice them in half, or three pieces, if they are larger. Dice two slices of bacon, barely cover them with water in a pot, and cook on medium-high until the water is gone and the bacon starts to fry. Add half an onion, chopped, and salt and pepper, and stir until the onion is soft. Spread the potatoes over the bottom of the pot, then mound the green beans, still frozen, on top. Turn to low, cover, and simmer for an hour or more (Southerners like their green beans mushy), stirring occasionally.
All of these things make great leftovers. For lunch I just piled the cold green beans and potatoes, black-eyes, and pork on a small plate and put it in the oven for a few minutes. When I was finished, even with the bread, there was still pot liquor in the plate. I lifted the plate to my lips and drank it off. Only do this at home. Of course in the cafes, the meat-and-three cooks realize the urge, and let you have your pot liquor and keep your manners, too. At Mary Mac's, you can order pot liquor by the cup.
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