By N.A. Booko
Pittsboro, NC – Tradition has it that if you eat collards and black-eyed peas on New Year’s day, it will bring you wealth. Collards are the green dollars and peas are the small change. As usual, I didn’t have a lot of collards and lots of peas. Had never cooked them in the same pot before. But in this case, it saved time and propane.
The peas I soaked over night with fresh garlic, garlic powder, salt. The collards were a little old, but still usable. Lately I have have a problem with the peas not tasting salty enough when cooked. Cooked in salt seems better tasting, to me, than fresh salt. Also, I used to cook the peas for nine minutes, but lately that doesn’t seem to be enough. Twelve minutes did the trick. Had them for breakfast.
For lunch i had collards, black eyed peas, cornbread and butter milk. Nothing could be finer. A poor person meal fit for a king.
I bought another bag of black eyed peas. So I will be getting small change for a long while now.
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N.A. Booko lives and writes in Chatham County and frequently blabs on the Chatham Chatlist about cooking, gardening and blabbing.