Ah, yes, New Year's traditions

Yes, I had my black-eyed peas on New Year's Day:

A little belated New Year's food porn

I have been chastised for not providing the rest of the instructions for cooking your New Year's black-eyed peas. I should have mentioned that the recipe was laid out in Part I here, Part II here and Part III here last year. Eh, I forgot. So I guess I'll put up this minor food porn a day late.

Anyway, you can still make your good-luck New Year's black-eyed peas. They just deliver more potent good luck on New Year's Day. As you may recall, on New Year's Eve we put the beeps in water to soak for 24 hours. New Year's morning, we brought that to a full boil, added some house seasoning (1 cup salt, 1/4 cup each of pepper, onion powder and garlic powder) to taste, then chopped up an onion and put that in. Put that on a low boil covered for about an hour, stirring occasionally. Reduce the heat to a simmer, and let that go until the beeps are tender and you are ready to eat them:

Serve and eat. If you seasoned them properly during cooking, you won't need to do a thing to them. I like them naked:

Many folks serve them with collards or some other greens (kale, spinach, grass clippings) and Mrs. Wolves likes them with catsup. I'm a naked kind of guy, myself. I suppose that search engines looking for the words "naked" and "porn" will be very disappointed by this post.

Still time to get your New Year's black-eyed peas started!

As everyone from the right part of the world knows -- the American South, y'all -- eating black-eyed peas on New Year's Day is not only a tradition, it is good luck for the coming year. You can also prepare collards or other greens if you like, but the beeps are what is important. (Black-eyed peas, b-p's, beeps. Are you following, here? Good.)

You just need to put a pound of beeps in a soup pot and cover them with water. (Check later to make sure they stay covered, as they will absorb the water.) You'll cook them tomorrow:

I hope you all enjoy your New Year's Eve. Don't get in too much trouble, unless you feel you must.

New Year's food porn, part III; Update!

OK, it's been a few hours with the peas on low heat. Add some salt and pepper, if you didn't earlier:

Now, taste test the peas:

If they're ready -- you'll know; they should be tender but not mushy -- bon appetit, and welcome to a long-standing Southern New Year's tradition. Crappy picture, great beeps -- black-eyed peas. I like a little extra salt. Mrs. Wolves puts catsup on them. Enjoy however you like.

Happy New Year's. people.

Update: I told you she liked catsup on her beeps:

New Year's food porn, part II

Took me a while to get around to this, but for those of you who started soaking your black-eyed peas yesterday, here are the next steps. Drain most of the water from the peas, add fresh water and turn to high heat. While that's heating up, chop up a sweet onion:

We've been over the difference between Vidalias and other, inferior sweet onions. I would always use Vidalias, but they are out of season, so the sweets I used are from Peru or someplace. If you know where to get Vidalias this time of year, by all means, share. Maui sweet onions are also really good, but I can't get those here, either. So put that chopped-up Peruvian onion in the peas:

Bring that sucker to a full boil:

Cover it, turn it down to a simmer and go about your day's activities for a couple hours. Feel free to return periodically to stir. Starting in about two hours, we will begin sampling for doneness. See you then.

Get ready for your New Year's Day traditional food porn!

Naturally, you took my advice and bought a bag of black-eyed peas, right? If so, you can participate in real time. First, get out that bag of dried peas:

Pour the peas into a suitably large soup pot (a big saucepan will do) and cover with at least an inch of water:

Put the cover on that sucker and go to work. We're not doing anything with this until they've soaked at least 24 hours. Tomorrow, we turn them into New Year's traditional goodness.

Last reminder

Did you get your dried black-eyed peas yet? You will need to start soaking them no later than New Year's Eve morning to participate in the live New Year's Day food porn. We won't be quite real time, as I won't be doing a web cam, but the post for this very Southern traditional New Year's Day food porn will be up in the morning Jan. 1, and you will be able to join the tradition that day. So get your beeps!