Southern Tradition

A southern tradition on New Year Day is to have black eyed peas and collard greens. I’m not sure if it matters which meal of the day, and since we were driving back from Raleigh, it meant ours was going to be for dinner. I was worried the grocery stores would be raided of all ingredients, as they usually are. My strategy was to go to the less-busy Harris Teeter grocery store. This works for common sold out ingredients during other holidays, and it worked for this one, too!

I do this a little different each year. I enjoy cooking the black eyed peas in an electric pressure cooker (Instant Pot, etc) with some sort of pork product. This can be diced ham, bacon, pancetta, pork salt, or anything you like. This year the grocer had a two pack of ham hocks left, so I went for those. I google the recipe every year, they’re all roughly the same. Saute some garlic and onion first if you like. The pork product, too, if it’s something like ham or bacon. I like to use stock over water, or a mixture of the two. The pressure cooker will cook the beans through easy peasy in about 25 minutes. Not counting time to come to pressure and naturally release, of course. Salt at the end in case your pork of choosing is salty enough.

The collards I chose to cook down in a little bit of chicken stock, apple cider vinegar and the other ham hock. With some salt and pepper.

Serve with rice and biscuits.

Mental note: cook beans more regularly.