Monday, January 5, 2009

Let's Get it Started........

Ha Ha...........a little Black Eyed Peas/New Years humor to start the year off!! Of course, we started the year with black eyed peas and cabbage. As a kid we had just that...a heaping scoop of black eyed peas (that I'm almost certain had been cooked with some kind of meat in them), alongside another heaping scoop of braised cabbage, and some cornbread on the side just to round things out. For the last 5 years we've moved the Christmas celebration to my house which I've enjoyed immensely, so starting last year we moved our New Year's Day meal to my house as well. Not being one who likes to break a tradition, I do like to put a new spin on them, you know, give them my own (vegan) signature. And hey, a tradition meant to bring good luck.....who in their right mind would mess with that? Even if half of my family hates black eyed peas and cabbage, I'm not about to risk a whole year of bad luck to please their palates on this one day.

We started 2008 with Hoppin' John, purple cabbage, and cornbread. It was a success, so I was sure I could please even the black eyed pea haters this year as well. I'd planned on Hoppin' John again, but came across a recipe for New Years Day Soup in the newest issue of Vegetarian Times, and decided to give that a try instead. I'm glad I did, it was fantastic. The flavor combo was great, and their was just enough heat for Rob to forget he was eating black eyed peas. My only advice is to make the soup a day in advance and just re-heat it for your New Year's Day meal (it was even better on January 2). Alongside our soup we had braised cabbage, and cornbread. Tradition indeed!!

Now, just a little note on my lack of blogging of late. Long and short..........I've been busy. With Mairin home from school, and Rob home from work a lot we've just been spending a lot of good quality time together and eating a lot of easy repeats. And, with the lack of CSA goodies, I've been very uninspired. (I also guess I should mention that after a long wait I finally got a Wii, and I've been totally consumed by video games since Christmas) I do have few things waiting on my attention that I'll be blogging about soon, plus some new dishes to prepare over the course of this week. So, hopefully I'll be back with more regular posts now that the busy holiday season has passed.

I also got a juicer for Christmas, so I've been busy concocting juice recipes. Juicing is awesome!! I'm totally addicted to my daily juice now. There's something so pleasing about cramming all of those nutrients into one glass and ingesting them all!! I mean seriously, it's 8:15 a.m. and I've already had 5 carrots, 2 oranges and a 1/2 inch piece of ginger........not possible by any other means than juicing. Plus, there's some green juice in my future today as well!!

3 comments:

J said...

Your black-eyed peas look yummy! Thanks for commenting on my blog...I've been absent from food blogging because I am deep in the middle of marathon training (my race is this Sunday!), and haven't had much time to cook anything new, let alone take pictures and blog about it. It's actually kind of neat to finally be in that spot where our quick easy regulars are all healthy and vegan! Hopefully in a few weeks I will have more time for new stuff. Thanks for not forgetting me! :)

carrie said...

Thanks Jenny.....of course I didn't forget you. I check everyday to see if you've updated!! Good luck with the marathon, and I can't wait to see you back to blogging again when it's all over!!

Amy said...

Haha, I (ahem, I mean my kids) got a Wii for Christmas too. I've headed down memory lane with Mario Kart a number of times :P

The black eyed pea soup looks yum! I've never eaten them before.