Happy New Year!

Being from the south, we stick to the New Year's tradition of pork, black-eyed peas, and cabbage for health, luck, and wealth in the New Year. Until I was out of college, it was up to my parents to put together said meal. My very first on my own was a bit of a scramble -- I can't remember the exact situation, but I wasn't able to go home (work) and so my boyfriend (now husband) and I scrambled to get some pork and cabbage egg rolls and a can of black-eyed peas to hit all the relevant food groups.

I'm too superstitious to let a New Year's dinner slide!

Since then, I've played with variations. I did pork cabbage rolls one year, a black-eyed pea dip another year, and this year I did a sort of black-eyed pea stew with ham and a side of creamed cabbage.

The stew was a variation of Hoppin' John recipes I came across. I soaked dried black-eyed peas overnight. The following morning, I sauteed a chopped onion with half a bell pepper, two sticks of celery and three cloves of garlic. Then I added diced ham leftover from Christmas dinner and added that to the pot along with the beans. Four cups of chicken broth, a bay leaf, a pinch of marjoram, and a pinch of thyme. Seasoned it all with salt, pepper, and Tony's and let it simmer away for the next two and half hours. I do have to say that this is one I would have cooked down much longer, but we were in a bit of a time crunch. If you were to let it cook down long enough for all the beans to be mushy and the liquid pretty much absorbed... yum!

The cabbage was super, super simple. I used Gojee to find this recipe: Five & Spice's Cabbage for Cabbage Haters. I highly recommend it as it was super tasty.

Neither dish was all that pretty, nor was it the healthiest New Year's dinner, but not the worst by far. Though my egg roll idea was inventive, I doubt I'll be returning to that unless I'm in dire straits.