La Vida Fresca

Black-eyed peas = luck, greens = wealth.

Today we had our traditional New Year’s Day dinner at the family’s house: black-eyed peas, collard greens, and white rice. Every January 1, they generously cook up this food and make sure everybody has some for health, wealth, and general good luck. It’s all very casual and we just show up and eat whenever we feel like it. Usually we have cornbread too but my mother-in-law served baked macaroni and cheese with it this year instead, which was fine with me. I like cornbread but I’m also quite fond of her macaroni and cheese. It’s one of my favorites. Of course I had to douse the mac and cheese with hot sauce. It’s so good that way.

That was my little plate. (I used a tiny plate because I wanted to sample all of the desserts, which I did. Some more than once.) The greens were fresh from their garden and so was the onion. Note the piece of hog jowl on the peas. They always make sure everybody eats a portion of the jowl for good luck, whether we like it (some do) or not (me).

The desserts, all made by my mother-in-law, were scrumptious: Coconut Dream Pie, strawberry shortcake, and chocolate pie. The cake part of the shortcake was Kathryn’s Favorite Cake from the Dillard House Cookbook. Yum.

I made these for Christmas from this recipe I got from All Recipies. Either I forgot to get a photo of the finished product or I lost it. Either way, the cookies came out looking a lot like the ones shown on the cookie sheet, except puffier. I used lots of nice festive holiday shapes and the cookies tasted OK. I might try out a different recipe next time though. The dogs seemed to like them fine but naturally it’s hard to tell how they compare to the treats you buy in the store. I draw the line at tasting them. The cookies were made with wheat flour, milk, and peanut butter.