Wednesday, January 1, 2020

New Years Day Meal


"Peas for pennies, greens for dollars, and cornbread for gold," goes an old Southern saying. Food that could be in anyway connected to money would ensure riches in the coming year. Why these foods? Well, black-eyed peas stored well and were cheap. Pork was slaughtered in the cold weather months. Pigs are a symbol of prosperity is because they root ahead as they eat, as opposed to the backwards scratching of chickens and turkeys. As for greens: Collards, mustard and spinach rich in nutrients. Cheap, plentiful, and easy to grow, they are flat, like paper currency, and thus favored. Cornbread? Well any excuse to eat cornbread will do!



Despite my own fondness for traditions from the kitchen, this year I'll stick to my own mash-up of good luck foods, pork, spinach, black-eyed peas and sliced carrots, they go together surprisingly well. Luck is something humans have no influence over, but the solace we take in cultural and culinary identity is. These rituals of eating special foods remind us who we are, where we've been, and the ways we hope to thrive.





Ingredients:
2 – 3 lbs sliced pork butt cut into pieces
1 onion chunked
3 cloves garlic chopped
½ tsp smoky paprika
½ tsp salt
½ tsp pepper
3 carrots peeled and sliced into “coins”
32 oz chicken broth (Low salt)
Corn bread muffin mix

On New Years eve,
Preheat oven to 215 degrees and spray a dutch oven. Chop the onion and garlic. Cut up and remove the bones for the sliced pork butt, cover and let braise in oven for at least 3 hours.



Remove from oven and add the spinach by handfuls. Stir in as the spinach wilts. Cover, let cool.



Then refrigerate overnight, get it out in the morning and set on counter for an hour to come up to room temps and skim any fat that has solidified overnight.

Wipe out the slow cooker, spray and set on low.
Peel and slice the carrots. Place on bottom of cooker along with onions and pork from the dutch oven.



Open and drain the cans of black-eyed peas and add them. Make sure all is covered with broth by adding any from the carton. Cover the cooker and let cook on low for 5 – 6 hours.



Fix your cornbread when the cooking time is nearing an end.

What a feast! Even if it does not bring fortunes in the coming year, you will have started things off right with a wonderful meal to remember!


Serving my Master Indy proudly
socialslave

To satisfy and restore.
To nourish, support and maintain.
To gratify, spoil, comfort and please,
to nurture, assist, and sustain
..I cook!

Please buy slave's cookbook:

The Little Black Book of Indiscreet Recipes by Dan White http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F315Y4I/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_vAT4sb0934RTMvia @amazon





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