It’s tradition on my side of the family to eat Black Eyed Peas and Cornbread on the first day of the new year. This year I cooked my peas a few days early, seperated them in to one cup portions, bagged and froze them. I started by sorting and rinsing the peas then tossing them in the crock pot with the ham bone from our Christmas ham. After covering with water…and a little bit of leftover chicken broth I had, I let them cook on low until they were done, about 8 hours. No soaking, no boiling, no seasoning (yet), just dump and cook.
On New Year’s Day, I pulled a baggie of peas and a baggie of sliced ham from the freezer to thaw. When thawed, I diced the ham and tossed everything in a small pan on the stove and this is where I seasoned with salt and pepper. Then I made the cornbread. We like a slightly sweet bread and use this recipe often. Normally our cornbread rises higher than this but I think my Baking Powder was losing it’s potency and has since been tossed and replaced.
And here’s a trick…many mixes can be made ahead and stored in your pantry or fridge. I saved one of DH’s coffee containers just for this purpose and made several baggies of cornbread mix then wrote the instructions for the wet ingredients on the baggies. It stacks nicely in the pantry and makes for much faster work later on when we’re ready for more cornbread.
Here’s to heaping bowls of Good Luck this year!
