Chickpea Soup With Orzo and Spinach

How about a hearty chickpea soup for New Year’s Eve or  New Year’s Day?

This recipe features all sorts of good vegetables to launch your new year–chickpeas, carrots, fennel, spinach and on and on. If you sprinkle some grated Parmesan over the soup at serving time and garnish it with a couple slices of jalapeno pepper, you will have a healthy feast to celebrate the first days of 2019.

There are many interesting New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day food traditions here in the United States and around the world.  My mother, who was from Mississippi, always served black-eyed peas and greens on New Year’s Day, for example. There was a whole lot of symbolism going on in those meals. In the American South, black-eyed peas symbolized coins and the greens were served because they were the color of money. Cornbread, golden-colored like…well…gold, was also served.  Mother was a strict taskmaster and it was clearly understood that if we ate these foods we had a shot at good luck and prosperity in the new year–something my blue-collar family desperately needed most years.  I choked down a lot of collard greens and mustard greens during those family New Year’s Day dinners in the hope of better days in the new year.

Whatever you are eating to celebrate the new year, Juliet and I wish you a happy new year from here at Blue Cayenne. Our hope is that you find you much happiness in the new year and a whole lot of good cooking.

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Here is the link to the original recipe: Chickpea Soup with Orzo.