Happy New Year!

The tradition for New Year’s Day says to “eat poor” for good luck throughout the year. Now, for different people and different parts of the country, that can be a lot of different things. Some people eat pork and sauerkraut (Gross! Sorry, but that’s just not my thing!)

Here in the South, your meal MUST include greens and black-eyed peas. Greens for wealth, and black-eyed peas for luck, I believe. Nothing seems more like a poor mans meal that Southern comfort food, and for me that includes some kind of cornmeal crusted fresh water fish. Catfish would be the standard “Southern” fish, but I think it tastes kinda like dirt (they are bottom feeders after all). My favorite for this is Rainbow Trout.

Frying fish like this is so easy! I just take trout fillets (check for bones first!) Put them in a ziplock bag with a little flour and toss to coat. Dip the fillets, first in an egg wash, then in a mixture of half cornmeal, half flour. Fry the fillets in light olive oil over medium-high in a skillet until fillets are firm and set on a paper towel lined plate. Now that’s fish!

For the greens this year I used kohlrabi greens instead of collards (trying to use what you have is eating frugally so that counts for extra good luck I hope!) I loosely followed Paula Deen’s Collard recipe. I used a leftover ham bone I saved from our Christmas spiral ham (the leftover ham, I’m going to make deviled ham with later on today). I put that in a stock pot with 4 cups chicken stock and 7 cups water and boil for 1 hour. Then add a washed bunch of greens with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and Tabasco sauce to taste. Let that boil about 1 more hour. I’ve also used bacon in this recipe, by frying a few strips of diced bacon in the  stock pot before adding the water and stock and skipped the first boiling.

For the black-eyed peas, I used a recipe that was originally meant for white acre peas ( another common Southern pea related to the black-eyed pea, that I like better by-the-way). I used a pound of fresh black-eyed peas, and about 3/4 of a pound of diced smoked turkey sausage in 4 cups vegetable stock and 4 cups water and heat to boiling in a stock pot. In a small skillet, I cooked a small diced onion with some minced garlic in 1 1/2 tablespoons butter until soft, then added that, along with a fresh thyme sprig with a bay leaf or two, some dried parsley, and dried oregano to the peas and sausage and let that gently boil for about an hour.

What is crazy to me is that since I’ve started using these recipes for greens and black-eyed peas (or more often white acre peas), it doesn’t have to be New Years day for me to eat them anymore! I used to detest this stuff! But now, they’re common side dishes!

Now off to make deviled ham!