Happy New Year

                         

Happy New Year!  I wish for you and yours a lovely day and a year filled with love and joy. We usually spend the day with a meal of black-eyed peas and rice--Hopping John. recipe to follow. Cornbread is a great accompaniment. It's a great way to use leftover ham from Christmas.  There are usually a few football games to watch and of course the Rose Bowl Parade. We usually leave our decorations up until after the new year.  My mother-in-law always felt it was bad luck to allow your Christmas decor to see the new year.  How about you?   I've never been the supertitious type.  Having said that, I do want to have our black-eyed peas for good luck. ha ha

Nellie Stevens Holly

Nandina

                                      Hopping John Recipe

1 cup chopped onion
1 chopped red pepper
1 chopped green pepper (I used 2 red peppers)
1 cup chopped cooked ham
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 small cans of black-eyed peas
1/2 to 1 teaspoon hot pepper sauce if desired
3 cups cooked rice
salsa if desired
sour cream if desired

Saute veggies

In a large skillet, cook onion, peppers and ham in oil for about 4 minutes.  Drain black-eyed peas, reserving 1/2 cup of liquid.  Add black-eyed peas, reserved liquid and pepper sauce ( if desired) to ham mixture and stir to combine. Heat over medium until bubbly.

Simmering 

Spoon over rice.

Enjoy

Top with salsa ( if desired) and top with sour cream.  Strangely enough, I love catsup on black-eyed peas.  Variation, omit rice and serve over cornbread.  We like Hopping John served over rice and cornbread on the side.
This recipe is quick.  Of course, if you want, you can make it very inexpensively by using dried black-eyed peas that have been cleaned, and soaked overnight, then cooked.








The eating of black-eyed peas on New Year's Day is very interesting. During the Civil War, Union soldiers took the livestock and food supplies from the farms and towns they came through for their own consumption.  They basically felt the field peas were only fit for animals and left them.  If it weren't for the peas that were left in the fields more would have starved.  So it is thought that eating peas on New Year's came from these cherished memories of being saved from starvation.




"Your success and happiness lies in you. Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties."
Helen Keller