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Now that Christmas is on it’s way out, I’m ready to bring in the new year. I’m from the south, and so my new year tradition involves eating cabbage/greens (for money) and black eyed peas (for luck) in my first meal of each year. My husband, a true Californian, can’t be bothered with these foods, but has been choking down his obligatory bites since he realized that I’d been getting larger bonuses. Be it the tradition or something else, we’ve been pretty lucky and have not had to go without, so we’ll be keeping with tradition on January 1.

That said, I found a good recipe in the January issue of Vegetarian Times for Southern New Years soup. It is not online, yet, but my mildly altered version is below:
1 can diced tomatoes with chilies,
1 can diced tomatoes,
1 can or 1/2 bag of black eyed peas,
8 cups water,
2 cups unsalted vegetable broth,
1 head of kale,
1/2 head of cabbage,
4 cloves garlic.
Heat 2 tbs olive oil until it starts to smoke. Add the kale (torn), cabbage (torn or shredded), and minced garlic. Cook until wilted, stirring constantly so that you don’t burn the garlic. Add the tomatoes and broth. We used fresh beans and added them with the tomatoes, simmering 20-30 minutes until soft. (If you use canned, you’ll ruin this as they’ll retain that canned bean flavor. If you use dry, you’ll need to cook those according to the recipe on the bag – 2hrs?)

We’ll be eating this as our first meal in 2009. Lord knows with the economy the way it is, we’ll need all the greens and black eyed peas we can swallow to hold us in good stead.