The “caviar” on my mind these days involves black-eyed peas, not those extravagant little fish eggs.  Marinated with chiles, onions, bell pepper, corn and tomatoes, the humble legumes are transformed into the classic Texas caviar.

This chunky salsa is a staple in the Lone Star State—a little bit Southern, a little bit Mexican, and altogether irresistible.  Countless variations have made the round of backyard barbecues and tailgate parties since the 1950s, but the original was the creation of Texas culinary star Helen Corbitt, a cookbook author who served as food consultant for Neiman-Marcus in Dallas.

I’ve been thinking about this dish ever since I made it for good luck last month.  Southern folklore says you’ll get a dollar in the coming year for every black-eyed pea you eat on New Year’s Day.  Inflation has sort of reduced the fiscal return on that deal, I’m afraid.  I can’t eat enough peas to make a difference in my bank balance, but it still makes me feel good to uphold tradition.

Super Bowl is my excuse for sharing it now.  I don’t care much for football, but I do like the snacks.

This recipe updates the original, with home-cooked peas rather than canned, and adds tomatoes and corn kernels for color, texture, and fresher flavor.  I’ve reduced the oil a little, too.  It would be a guilt-free indulgence if I could just pass on the tortilla chips. But we all know that’s not likely.

Don’t be put off by the idea of cooking the peas from scratch.  There’s nothing to it.  They don’t require soaking in advance and cook more quickly than you would imagine—usually about an hour of untended simmering.  Or you can throw them in a slow cooker (after soaking) for 3-4 hours on high.

The cooking time will depend on how dry the peas are. When they’re tender to the bite, they’re done.  Just remember not to add salt until the end of the cooking time since it is thought to make beans tough.

Alternatively, just open the cans.  I found cans of organic black-eyed peas at Whole Foods that were quite good and not too salty.

Even with canned peas, this salsa would be the star of any casual get-together.  Say, a Super Bowl party?

There was a time when I cooked bulgur several times a month.  The par-boiled and ground wheat was cheap, filling, and a great base for one-pot meals with vegetables and chicken.

I loved the mild, nutty flavor and nicely chewy texture.  But bulgur slipped out of my repertoire when I began experimenting more in the kitchen and homey pilafs gave way to sophisticated risottos.

This winter, though, I’ve rediscovered the simple pleasures of the quick-cooking grain in my quest to put more whole grains on our plates.  Prepared in the style of a risotto with mushrooms, butternut squash and spinach, it makes a terrific entree for Meatless Monday or a side dish for grilled meat.

Bulgur is a staple in the Middle East and  may well have been the first convenience food.   Archaeologists date the cereal back at least as far as Bulgaria in 5900 BC,  where it was pre-cooked and dried before being ground, much as it is today.

You may have eaten it in tabouleh or kibbeh, the meatballs popular throughout Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.  It retains most of its nutrients and is a far better source of protein and fiber than brown rice  Look for it in the bulk bins of natural foods stores or in the supermarket cereal aisle alongside the steel-cut oats and seven-grain blends.

Unlike many whole grains, bulgur cooks in 20 minutes or less.  It can be soaked in boiling water or simmered in chicken broth.  Vegetable broth is a good alternative but makes for a slightly sweeter dish.

I give the grain a risotto treatment — minus the constant stirring — in this pilaf of winter vegetables.  Half a cup of dry white wine, stirred in after the bulgur cooks for a few minutes, makes all the difference in the finished dish.  Baby spinach is added in the last five minutes for the nutritional blessings of greens without all the prep work of kale and chard.

Bulgur has earned a prominent place in my pantry once again.

The poor radish gets no respect in America.  We take it for granted, barely registering its crisp snap and remarking only when it gets a little too spicy for comfort in the scorching hot days of summer.  It’s merely the supporting actor in the garden salad, the splash of color on the crudité platter.

The French, however, have long appreciated the humble roots for their satisfying texture and gentle bite, serving them with sweet butter and sea salt.   Asian cooks treasure the more pungent varieties for pickles and stir fries.

I say it’s time to give radishes their due on this continent.    They’re the stars in this winter salad, which makes the most of what’s in season right now.

Although radishes are year-round vegetables in Northern California, they like cool weather.  They’re at their crunchy best right now with none of the bitterness that sometimes marks summer radishes. Any of the many varieties should work well for this salad.  I used the common red radishes with bright white flesh, which are easy to find.

The English cucumber they’re paired with is a hot house product at any time of the year.  I get mine from the Nagamine family, who grows them in Watsonville greenhouses and sells them at local farmers markets.

Inspiration for the salad came from Nigel Slater’s “Kitchen Diaries” (Gotham Books, 2006).  I made some key alterations, though, substituting lemon juice for red wine vinegar, introducing a bed of peppery arugula and omitting the feta cheese.  Feta is nice, but not essential to the salad.  Feel free to crumble some on top if you have it on hand.

One bite of this salad and you’ll feel like spring has arrived ahead of schedule.

One of the best gifts I received over the holidays was an introduction to this kale salad. I spotted it in the deli case when I was shopping at my local natural foods store a couple of days after Christmas and bought a quarter pound on a whim.

It was an instant hit.  My family and I began nibbling on little bits of sesame seed flecked Kale right out of the carton as soon as we got home and it never made it to the dinner table.

With all the crunchy textures and savory Asian flavors, the dish reminded me of the seaweed salad I always order at sushi bars. Most of the ingredients were readily identified—raw kale, red onion, sunflower sprouts and a trio of pumpkin, sunflower and sesame seeds. I wasn’t sure about the dressing, though.  It tasted a lot like soy sauce, yet not quite.

After New Year’s, I contacted Naomi Dresser at New Leaf Community Markets, a small chain of natural foods grocers in the Santa Cruz area.  The Coastal Kale Salad is one of the store’s favorites, Dresser said, and she was happy to share the ingredients. But New Leaf does not give out recipes.

A web search, however, brought up several mentions of a kale salad with very similar ingredients in “Esalen Cookbook,” by Charlie Cascio (Gibbs Smith, 2006). I used that recipe as a guide for some of the proportions in mine.

The mystery ingredient turns out to be Bragg’s Liquid Amino, a soybean based condiment long favored by health food advocates.  I don’t have any on my shelves, so  I’ve used tamari, a mellow cousin of soy sauce that is derived from miso paste.  Its salty, savory character gets a lift from the lemon juice and olive oil in the vinaigrette.

Although any variety of kale would work in this salad, I like it best with Tuscan kale, known as cavolo nero in Italy.  The leaves are more tender and the flavor a little more mellow than ordinary curly kale.

They’re also easier to handle.  You just fold each leaf lengthwise and strip it from the center stem.  Stack the leaves in thick bunches and slice them crosswise into narrow ribbons, which tenderize more quickly in the lemony dressing.  To speed up the tenderizing process, you also can squeeze and massage the leaves vigorously for a couple of minutes after pouring on the dressing.

Or just let the dressed leaves stand for half an hour or so before serving.  Unlike most salads, this is better when it’s made ahead of time.  The leaves get softer but don’t wilt.  So it’s even good after a night in the refrigerator.

Kale salad is going to be a regular on my dinner menus this winter.

After the excesses of the holidays, all I want to eat right now is simple, nutritious food.  I loved all those cookies, extravagant meals and festive cocktails — far too much, I’m afraid.  My body needs a break.

If you feel the same way, I’ve got a soup for you.  This split pea soup takes just minutes to put together and only a little more time to cook, thanks to the pressure cooker.  You could cook it in a regular pot, too, although it will take a little longer to cook the peas until tender and require careful watching to avoid scorching.

Leave out the ham hock and you have a terrific vegetarian version.  Just be sure to look for bright green split peas for the best flavor.

I’ve been using my Fagor pressure cooker a lot more in recent weeks because I wanted to show a visiting relative how easy and safe it is.  Modern pressure cookers are designed to avoid the hazards of pea soup on the ceiling associated with the old style cookers, which would blow their weights and the contents of the cooker if something wasn’t quite right.

The only real risk now is burning yourself with hot steam if you’re not cautious when removing the lid.  This soup doesn’t even require that precaution since you let the pressure fall naturally with the lid still locked in place.

I like to puree the finished soup to achieve the velvety texture that always drew us to Andersen’s Pea Soup restaurant in Buellton when we used to travel up and down Highway 101 a couple of times a year to visit my mother-in-law in Southern California.

If you’re feeling ambitious, you can set out little bowls of croutons, crumbled bacon, shredded cheddar and chopped green onions as garnishes.  I’m happy with a little of the smoky, salty ham hock.

Savory and quick are all I want this week.  Oh yes, and a minimum of dishes to wash.

Pour an extraordinary cocktail, set out some irresistible nibbles, and you’re ready for a celebration.

My search for the perfect New Year’s Eve libation this year led me to the “PDT Cocktail Book,”: by Jim Meehan (Sterling Epicure, 2011).  Illustrated with Chris Gall’s colorful woodcut engravings, the book is an engaging and often esoteric guide to the artisan cocktails created for the speakeasy-style Manhattan bar, Please Don’t Tell.  It’s such a hit that I couldn’t find a hardback version anywhere so I downloaded the e-book version.

Meehan is known as one of the most innovative mixologists in a new generation of gourmet bartenders.  He builds his drinks from an impressive stock of unusual and hard-to-find ingredients. Just hunting down all the components is a challenge, as writer Jeff Gordiner recounted in the New York Times earlier this month.

We couldn’t track down many of the special spirits and mixers Meehan specifies for his cocktails but we substituted the best ingredients available in local stores.  The results, if not absolutely authentic, were always impressive, with a complexity of flavor rarely found in home-mixed drinks.

The cosmopolitan made with Hangar One Buddha’s Hand Vodka, which is distilled nearby in Alameda, was a perfect balance of citrus and tart cranberry flavors with just a touch of sweetness. Meehan gives credit to Cheryl Cooke of Miami, Fla. who is believed to have created the first cosmo in the mid-1980s.

To complement the cosmo, I’ve been playing around with a new cracker recipe combining the Southern classics of pimento cheese spread and cheese straws.  I’ve added minced pimentos to the usual sharp cheddar and ditched the cookie press in favor of a simpler slice-and-bake shaping technique.  The dough can be stored in the freezer and baked off at the last minute.

With this cocktail in your glass and these crackers on your plate, the prospects for 2012 will look very good indeed.

I’ve begun to dread any recipe that starts with cutting up a winter squash.  Every time I slice open a butternut squash, I worry that I’m either going to break a knife blade or slash a finger before I’m done.  Kabocha squash, which I love, is even more of a challenge.

So it was a pleasant surprise when I sliced into a delicata squash for the first time this year.  The knife just slipped right through the thin skin and tender flesh.  The heirloom squash didn’t even require peeling.

The flavor was wonderful, too — a little milder than butternut, but sweet and rich with a creamy texture.  It’s ideal for this beautiful salad I found in one of my favorite new cookbooks, “Eat Good Food,”  by BiRite Market owner Sam Mogannam and Dabney Gough (Ten Speed Press, 2011).

The combination of roasted squash and fingerling potatoes with peppery arugula, pomegranate seeds and Parmesan is as delicious as it is colorful.  I’m planning to serve it with a pork roast for Christmas dinner.

The delicata squash looks a bit like a reverse image of its summer cousin, the zucchini.  It’s sausage-shaped and rather small with green stripes on yellow skin.  The flavor is so nice, it needs little embellishment.  Roast the slices with a little olive oil and salt until the edges begin to caramelize and  you’ve got a great side dish .

For this recipe, the squash and potatoes are sliced fairly thin for quick roasting.  Then they’re tossed with the arugula and pomegrante seeds in a vinaigrette made with champagne vinegar and shallots.  A dish this substantial could be served as a vegetarian entree but I think of it as salad and starch in one.  Just add protein, bread and a nice wine for a complete winter’s feast.

No matter how much I plan ahead for the holidays, it seems life starts spinning out of control about this time every year.

Here it is less than two weeks ’til Christmas and I still haven’t made any of the usual decorated cookies.  Maybe sometime next week.  Who knows?

With these buttery shortbread cookies in the house, I’m not too worried.  They’re so good in their natural state, one bite banishes all thought of frosting and sprinkles.

The beauty of these cookies is they’re so simple to make.  No rolling, no cutting into cutesy shapes, no decorating.   Just press the dough evenly into a fluted tart pan and bake.

Over the course of refining this classic recipe and it’s variations, though, I picked up a few tips to make Scottish-style shortbread even better:  Use the best butter, handle the dough as little as possible, and chill well before baking to let the flavors develop.

Butter is the heart and soul of shortbread, so you really don’t want to cut corners here.  I used some pricey vat-cultured butter from Sierra Nevada Cheese Company in one batch and the cookies were wonderful.  However, the Straus organic European-style butter at 85 percent butterfat also was incredibly good and a little less expensive.

Although most recipes call for letting the butter soften to room temperature first, I’ve had better results starting with cold butter, cutting it into small chunks and whirling it in the food processor.  If the butter is too soft and you beat it too long in an electric mixer, myriad tiny bubbles form in the dough, leading to unwanted rising and bubbling in the oven.

For the most tender results, you want the dough to be crumbly and loose before you press it into the pan.  Like pie dough, it shouldn’t be overworked.  It will continue to hydrate in the refrigerator and come together when the butter melts in the oven.

The vanilla bean shortbread should be a pale yellow when it emerges from the oven.  The equally delicious brown sugar variation is a little darker, hinting at its intriguing caramel flavor.

In deference to chocoholics, I’ve also developed a variation with cocoa and cacao nibs. Those chunky little bits of roasted cacao beans bring an extra layer of flavor to these cookies and it continues to develop as they’re stored after baking.  Scharffen Berger makes the nibs, which are readily found at most supermarkets.

After baking, cool the shortbread completely in the pan before cutting into the wedges known at petticoat tails in Scotland.

If you really must decorate, you could drizzle these cookies with melted chocolate.  But I wouldn’t.  They’re perfect just out of the pan.

We’ve had a harsh introduction to winter in the Santa Cruz Mountains, where I live.

Ferocious winds buffeted the redwoods surrounding my house for three days and nights last week, uprooting a huge tree just up the road, knocking down a utility pole and sending a long limb crashing through a skylight in the living room.  The power was out for four days and the DSL just returned.

We’ve lived here a long time and we’re used to the electricity going out in the middle of big storms.  We have a generator to keep the refrigerator, freezer and a couple of lamps running.  But cooking becomes a challenge when the oven doesn’t work and you have to wear a backpacker’s headlamp to see clearly what you’re chopping.

I was grateful to have a beautiful red kabocha squash sitting on the kitchen counter when the lights went out.  With a little curry paste, chicken stock and some coconut milk from the pantry, it made a spicy but soothing soup to improve our mood during a difficult week.

Of course it helps if you happen to have a squash on your counter and some Asian ingredients in your pantry.  But this soup is so simple and flavorful, it’s worth stocking up for future emergencies. The Asian ingredients are commonplace in supermarkets now and hard-skinned winter squashes keep for quite a while in a cool, dry place.

The inspiration for this dish comes from the gardening/cooking journal, “Tender,” by Nigel Slater (Ten Speed Press, 2009).  Slater is a gifted British cook who writes about the down-to-earth food that real people eat.  His book is my go-to reference for interesting recipes using fresh produce.

Since the red kabocha, often called Japanese pumpkin, is an especially sweet and meaty winter squash, I was pretty sure it would work in the “pumpkin laksa for a cold night,” based on a traditional Malaysian soup.  Butternut squash would work, too, although the flavor is not as rich.

To save time and energy, I steamed the flesh unpeeled.  It was much easier to cut away after it had softened in the steam.  I also added baby spinach leaves to give the soup enough substance for a one-dish meal.

Slater probably would be appalled that I’ve substituted jarred curry paste for the homemade version in his recipe.  I’m sure his would be far better, too, but I didn’t have those ingredients on hand.

The first time I made this soup, I wildly overestimated the appropriate amount of commercial curry paste and produced an almost inedible concoction.  Even my husband, who loves fiery food, found it hard to finish a bowl.

I may have erred on the side of caution with this recipe, so feel free to add more if it’s too mild for you.  The spices add a warming tingle to the creamy soup accented with lime.

When temperatures drop and winds blow, this is just the soup to have in your repertoire.

Tis the season of cookbooks.  Publishers wait until the last quarter of the year to release their best new culinary books in time for holiday giving and it’s an exciting time for anyone as addicted as I am.

Still, I’ve had to put myself on a cookbook diet.  Only the books that really speak to me earn a spot on my overcrowded shelves now.  A few come over the transom as publisher releases.  Most I buy myself because I can’t resist their siren call.

That means this year’s collection of holiday cookbooks is an idiosyncratic lot.  The only celebrity chef in the bunch is Jacques Pepin, who earned his toque decades ago and has become a favorite.  The rest appeal to me because they teach me something new or offer a different perspective on a familiar theme.

There’s a wide range here, from the gorgeous coffee table-worthy “The Food of Spain,” by Claudia Roden, to the latest contribution from the ingenious “Five Minutes A Day” bakers, Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois.  Take a peek.  These are cookbooks worth giving.

“BiRite Market’s Eat Good Food,” by Sam Mogannam and Dabney Gough (Ten Speed Press, 2011, $32.50)

Perhaps my favorite selection, this book is more about ingredients than recipes.  It’s the story of a little neighborhood market that became a food lover’s mecca in San Francisco’s Mission district.   Owner Sam Mogannam, who cooked for a living before reluctantly taking up the family business, believes in local, seasonal and artisanal food.  He walks his readers through the jam-packed little market, sharing tips on shopping for everything from olive oil and sea salt to biodynamic wine.  The section on produce is organized by seasons and offers invaluable information on buying, storing and using fresh vegetables and fruit, starting with avocados and ending with pomegranates.  This is a reference book that already is getting a lot of use in my kitchen.

That would be reason enough to buy this book, but the recipes interspersed throughout are winners, too.  Spaghetti with tuna, capers, and chile flakes is one of the best pantry pastas I’ve ever made and I plan to pick up some Delicata squash at the farmers market this week to make the salad with arugula, fingerling potatoes and pomegranate seeds.

“The Food of Spain,” by Claudia Roden (HarperCollins, 2011, $39.99)

When Claudia Roden writes, readers learn as much about history and culture as about cooking.  I’ve long relied on her cookbooks for the last word on Middle Eastern cuisine.  Now she’s taken on Spain, tracing the culinary roots of a nation that more recently has built a reputation for adventurous cooking. The first section of the 610-page book is a beautifully photographed travelogue of Spain’s major regions and their signature dishes.  Among the recipes are all the familiar classic dishes, including gazpacho and paella in several variations, as well as many dishes that will be new to anyone who hasn’t been immersed in Spanish food.

I’m looking forward to spending more time with this treasure during the long, dark days of winter.  So far, though, I’ve eaten mostly with my eyes: the photographs are stunning.  When quinces were readily available, I made Roden’s extremely simple dulce de membrillo, which roasts the astringent fruit slowly with sugar until it is transformed into a luscious, fragrant paste. Her spinach and chickpea soup from Castile, a Lenten specialty, is on my list for a rainy day in the near future.

“Essential Pepin,” by Jacques Pepin (Houghton Mifflin, 2011, $40)

I’ve never encountered a cookbook by Jacques Pepin that I didn’t like.  He earned his reputation, making his name as a chef  long before he debuted on public television some 25 years ago.  He’s a master who not only understands how to cook but also how to teach others to cook.

This new book is the culmination of a long career that has included more than 20 cookbooks.  It has the feel of a personal scrapbook filled with more than 700 updated recipes that span Pepin’s wide-ranging food interests, from a classic fines herbes omelet to a Vietnamese-style soup.  In the place of the usual mouth-watering photographs are the chef’s charming drawings.  Although recipes may be stripped down to match contemporary sensibilities, they’re never simplistic.  I particularly liked his pumpkin au gratin, a luxurious dish made with eggs, cream and cheese that was far more than the sum of its parts.

On a modern note, Pepin has included a DVD  featuring videos on clarifying stock, trussing a chicken, making puff pastry and more.  Initially, I bought the Kindle version of the cookbook in order to view the videos on my iPad.  They were charming and very helpful, but the rest of the book didn’t work that well in an electronic format.  So I bought the paper and ink version to browse and let inspiration strike.

“The Bonne Femme Cookbook,” by Wini Moranville (Harvard Common Press, 2011, $24.95)

If your vision of real French food involves hours spent in front of the stove, it’s time to meet Wini Moranville.  A freelance food editor and writer, Moranville and her husband have spent every summer since the early 1990′s in France.  Along the way, she’s picked up the secret of simple everyday French food a la bonne femme, French for “good wife.”

This cookbook is packed with casual recipes with real French flair. They employ the same shortcuts French home cooks take all the time, frozen puff pastry and canned chicken broth among them.  I’m smitten by the chapter on poultry, which presents chicken in a delicious new light — just what we need at my house.  The osso buco-style chicken thighs with wine and tomatoes were great and the flavor was even better the next day.  I’m also looking forward to Moranville’s streamlined version of coq au vin.  Desserts were a little disappointing, mostly simple fruit tarts and crepes.  That shouldn’t have been a surprise, though.  The French leave elaborate pastries to the neighborhood patisserie, after all.

“Artisan Pizza and Flatbread in Five Minutes a Day,” by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois (Thomas Dunne, 2011, $27.99)

The no-knead method of bread baking that Hertzberg and Francois popularized in their first cookbook was a stroke of genius.  It’s very convenient to stir up a batch of dough and let it ferment in the fridge for a week or so until I’m ready to bake off a loaf.  However, I confess I’ve used the technique far more often for pizza than for loaves of bread or rolls.

So I jumped at the chance to review this new cookbook.  A number of the same or similar recipes can be found in the authors’ two earlier cookbooks, but this one brings all of my favorites together under the same cover.  Plus there are new recipes, such as the one for stuffed naan and another for lahmacun, a Turkish spiced lamb flatbread.

I still haven’t worked my way through all the pizza recipes but I can give two thumbs up to the individual breakfast pizzas.  What’s not to like about sausage, spinach and cheddar cheese freshly baked on a pizza crust?   My husband really liked it with an egg on top, too.  This is going to be the go-to brunch dish at my house this holiday season.