Happy New Year Y'all!

Here in the south we have many traditions, and most of them revolve around food (one of the best things about living here!). For New Years this means cooking up some black-eyed peas for luck and cornbread because....well just because its delicious.

For the cornbread I used this recipe from allrecipes.com. It came out absolutely perfectly cooked at about 22 minutes in the oven. This cornbread is very sweet with 2/3 cup of sugar in the recipe, which is totally fine by me, but for a more savory taste you might want to cut back the sugar a little bit. I think next time I'll include a can of corn and some green chiles or jalapenos for a little kick.

I wish I had a recipe to share for the black-eyed peas, but I followed my Grandmother's attitude of throw some things in a pot and see what happens. In general I combined a bag of dried black-eyed peas (rinsed but not soaked overnight), a ham bone from our Christmas spiral cut ham, some shakes of onion, garlic, and chipotle powder, and just a touch of seasoning salt in a crockpot. Add enough water to cover the beans and almost all of the ham bone. Let this mixture cook in the crockpot for between 5-6 hours or until the beans are soft but not mushy. These are perfect with a splash of Tabasco sauce and of course will bring you good luck all year long! What's not to love? I'll tell you this much, one member of our family couldn't wait to get a taste.....

-D