Yes, I have brought my New Year's Day tradition with me to New Mexico. This year's health-bringing pork is a pork butt that is currently in a 300-degree oven to cook slowly all day.
In a spectacular example of very forward thinking, I actually bought my bag of black-eyed peas while I was in Tucson for Thanksgiving. I hadn't yet seen any in the stores around here, so when I had to go to the grocery store in Tucson, I went ahead and got some to bring back with me. How's that for planning ahead? Can't jeopardize this year's happiness by striking out on the black-eyed peas, now can I?
I forgot to look for a ham hock to put in with the peas, but A. did get a GIANT BOX of bacon at the grocery store last time we went. Seriously. Giant. Ten pounds of bacon for twenty bucks. It's supposedly the ends and pieces, but it mostly looks like regular bacon to me. Good deal.
Anyway. I'm obviously not lacking smoked pork, albeit in thin strips. So I rolled a few pieces up and secured them into a ball with a toothpick for easy fishing out (and crisping up) when the black-eyed peas are done.
Nothing like a good bacon roll-up, I always say.
I have no dearth of greens this year, once again thanks to A. The collard greens he planted for me produced a LOT of greens.
The collard greens in a warmer, less snowy time.
Harvesting those greens was the very last thing I did at our rental house in the village. I was exhausted from moving and a two-hour mad cleaning rush, but by God, I would get my collard greens. I cut two huge bags full.*
Good thing, as it is currently 13 degrees outside and looks like this:
Even collard greens aren't happy in this weather.
We're also going to use some of that freshly-fallen snow to make maple snow ice cream. I've never made it before, but it can't be that hard, and we might as well make good use of the snow, right?
Right. Happy New Year, my lovelies.
* I pulled the plants in the front bed in the picture there, but A. asked me to leave in the ones in the back bed so we could drive by later and see if they started re-growing. We didn't know if anyone would be moving in after we were gone, but it turned out that the school cook and her family moved in. So I told her there were collard greens in the back bed, and she exclaimed, "Oh, great! I love collard greens!" I feel that house--and those plants--ended up with the right people.
7 comments:
As you read, my New Year's meal is also cooking, albet with different animal product seasonings and pork loin instead of butt. No judgement here, but loin sounds so much more appealing than butt. I've got my receipe out for cornbread, something we rarely eat but truly love. Guess y'all are passing on that this year since it's doesn't really bring anything to the meal but really exceptional taste.
Happy Happy New Year to all ya'll, and you win on snow amount. However, I think we win in coolness of photos. Nothing like cactus and desert mountains with a dusting of snow to add to the wow factor!
Here in PA we eat pork & sauerkraut for good luck. We have 55F degree weather today, so I actually am alittle jealous of your snow & colder temps. Happy New Year!
Linda
happy new year!
i am interested why you do a bacon rollup and THEn crisp the bacon.
i do it the other way: crips the bacon and then fry the onions in the bacon fat before cooking the black eyed peas with that. am i doing this wrong?
Flask: I highly doubt there's a wrong way. I was just kind of lazy and wanted the bacon flavor without frying bacon. So I did the roll-up, then pulled it out and snipped it up with kitchen shears before frying it in some of the pork fat from the roast. I put some of the bacon back in the black-eyed peas and the rest in with the collard greens.
13 degrees FARENHEIT?
OMG! I haven't read in a while...but in that while you moved to NEW MEXICO!!!
What part may I ask? I was born and raised there - Northern - Farmington to be exact. I now live in Texas. So that makes sense now on your knowledge and availability to Green Chile and melons/squash.
Welcome to the Land of Enchantment or Entrapment as most people call it.
Geneva: We're in far northeastern New Mexico, though I prefer not to say exactly where. I don't have much knowledge of green chile yet (other than that they burn my mouth every time), but I'm learning. And hey, thanks for reading for so long. That's cool.
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