New recipes I tried in the 1st week of the new year

The start of a new year, like a poem, has both heft and a lightness of being. It carries the weight of our hopes and expectations for an entire year, 365 days. New year's day, Jan. 1, flies on the wings of optimism and starts the week off with a heady sense of freedom -- it's a new beginning, a chance to get things right, be your best you.

Here's a poem and few recipes I tried, enjoyed and shared in the first week of 2017:

"Burning the Old Year" by Naomi Shihab Nye 

So much of any year is flammable, 

lists of vegetables, partial poems, 

orange swirling flame of days 

so little is a stone. 

 Read the rest of the poem at the Poetry Foundation. 

 Laaaaaaa