Wednesday, January 2, 2013

the things we do for luck



Even though I have no particular personal connection the Southern United States, I've somehow adopted the tradition of making a variation of Hoppin' John each New Year's Day. According to lore, eating this black-eyed pea dish on New Year's Day is thought to bring a prosperous year filled with luck.   I've made it as a hot bean and rice dish and cooled down as hearty salad.  A few weeks ago my friend Jilanna sent me the link to the new magazine By Hand which featured their take on Hoppin' John - this time baked in an acorn squash.  Yum!

Since I didn't have dried black eyed peas and had to resort to canned, I tweaked the amount of stock a bit (I also think I'd add some rice if I do the recipe again.)   It's a hearty, savoury dish and for a household of one offers up a whole lot of left-overs for the first week of work lunches in 2013.

As a nice side bonus, I had a small amount of squash seeds to toss in salt and oil and roast for a tasty snack.

Apparently to be truly lucky, Hoppin' John should be eaten with collard greens and cornbread which I skipped but hopefully a little luck will still come my way in 2013!


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Looks yummy!

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