Good morning! Today we have for you:

• A garden’s worth of greens for a fresh start to the year

• One of our many popular recipes for pillowy store-bought gnocchi

• And, a versatile vegan soup that you can master in one go and repeat all winter

Hello! Julia here. Happy to be with you today.

We published Toni Tipton-Martin’s Hoppin’ John recipe (adapted by Kayla Stewart) in 2021, and the comments have been reliably busy and heartwarming around the New Year ever since. A commenter named Bea wrote:

“My southern mother made black-eyed peas, ham, mustard greens and corn bread religiously every New Year’s Day. After her six kids were grown, she called each of us to make sure we’d had a bite of each to insure robust health, prosperity and good fortune throughout the year. I make a version of this meal every January 1st for my family and though my mother has been gone for twenty years, I’ll anticipate hearing the phone ring all day long.”

With Louisianians chiming in about using tasso instead of ham, vegans bringing the smoked paprika and Lowcountry folks asserting that red peas are luckier, this classic dish is the kind of recipe that makes New York Times Cooking a sustaining, inspiring community all year long.

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Hoppin’ John

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Here are four more recipes to start (or end) your year on a lively note:

Coconut saag: As Priya Krishna says in the video that demonstrates the recipe, “This is the best way that you can eat a pound of greens.” It’s warming and hearty, but somehow still light.

Sheet-pan roast chicken with tangy greens: Cooking kale or other braising greens in the spiced, golden fat that’s rendered from roasting chicken legs is the kind of technique that makes a sheet-pan dinner special.

Crispy gnocchi with spinach and feta: Spinach and feta with dill, mint and lemon is a heavenly (and classic) combination, and I love how Hetty Lui McKinnon combines that here with the browned, buttery gnocchi.

Golden potato and greens soup: Finally, how beautiful is this golden soup from Andy Baraghani? It has many of the restorative, cheering properties of chicken soup, but it’s vegan.

Thanks for reading!