A New Year Tradition

Same black eyed peas, after soaking overnight

In large parts of the Southern United States, it is a tradition to eat Black Eyed Peas on New Year's Day.  There are all sorts of traditions - some like to eat them at midnight, for others it is a dinner thing, and many other think it must be served with some sort of greens and/cornbread.

My family has never had such a tradition, but I thought it would be a nice way to start out our Year of Beans and Rice.  I've heard and read about lots of folks who think Black Eyed Peas are just awful:  bland, boring and no fun to eat.  I'm pretty determined to make these things taste right, first, so my kids will eat what I've cooked and second, so we start this year out in a positive way.


I've read about a bjillion black eyed peas recipes this week, and came up with a rough plan for how I was going to cook them.  Unfortunately, I forgot that my little corner of the world was going to be shut down yesterday and today, and I failed to pick up every last ingredient before the shops closed.  My dreamy husband has very, very nicely taken our herd of children out for a few hours and I told him to keep his eyes open for any open shops at which he might purchase an onion and some greens.

So far, we've got a cup of dried black beans that have soaked overnight, some bacon (I planned to get pancetta, as I think it is a beautiful thing, but there was that store issue), some homemade chicken stock in the freezer, one very sad greenish-yellowish pepper, and the basic selection of herbs and spices in the spice drawer.  If the dreamy husband is unable to locate an onion, I will go begging at the neighbors.  (Nice way to start out this project, huh?)

Now that I've written all this backstory, I can't decide if I should put the actual cooking bits in this post or make a new post for it.  Do y'all have any opinions?