New Year's

               Today is New Years and my goal is to feature a different part of the world everyday. However New Years is a special day for many cultures including our own.

               When I was young, my mom always made black eyed peas for New Year’s. She always told me that this was a tradition to help bring luck into the new year.

Eating black-eyed peas in Texas seemed very commonplace. However, when I moved from Texas to the Midwest I noticed almost no one did this. Where there would be a mad dash for black-eyed peas prior to the December 31^st at the store I now found almost no evidence of such a ritual. I found this odd since I was not living too far from where my mother had grown up. 

               In college I had talked with some of my friends about this ritual and had found that more of my friends from the south had heard of something similar. I was told that it wasn’t corn beef hash you were supposed to eat with the black eyed peas but greens. The greens were supposed to represent dollars and the beans are supposed to represent coins. I found evidence of this in this in the following website: http://gosoutheast.about.com/od/restaurantslocalcuisine/a/blackeyedpeas.htm

 

Breakfast:

Vegetarian Corn “Beef” Hash

Lunch: Cabbage

Drink: Champaign

Dinner:

 Black Eyed Pea Soup and Spiced Turnip Greens

Black-eyed pea soup:

Ingredients:

1 cup black-eyed peas

Water

2-cups vegetable stock

½ onion (chopped)

Carrots- chopped

2 cloves of garlic (minced)

Cooking oil (I like to use canola oil vegetable spray)

Directions:

1.      Soak beans in water over night. In the morning place beans in crockpot with vegetable stock. Place crock pot on high.

2.      Heat up a pan on medium heat with a small amount of cooking oil. Add the onions and carrots, sauté’ until the onions start to turn translucent and then add the garlic. Sauté a couple minutes longer.

3.      Add the vegetables to the crock pot. Add extra water to the crock pot so that the liquid is about a quarter inch from the top of the crock pot. Let cook on high for 6-8 hours (longer is acceptable if you aren’t back from work/errands on time).

Turnip Greens:

Ingredients:

3 cups fresh turnip greens-chopped

½ onion-sliced

¼ tsp. turmeric

½ tsp. cumin

¼ tsp. chili powder (optional)

1 finger chili (optional)

1 cup vegetable broth

Cooking spray (or vegetable/canola oil)

½ Yogurt or cottage cheese (optional).

Directions:

1.      Heat oil or cooking spray in large skillet. When the skillet is hot, add onions and sauté until the onions turn translucent.

2.      Add chopped turnip greens to the mix and continue to sauté for a few more minutes.

3.      Add vegetable broth and spices. Brig the broth to a boil.

4.      If the dish is too spicy, I like to add ½ cup cottage cheese to help cool it down.