Happy New Year’s Day! We are starting off this new year with a traditional southern U.S. menu meant to bring good luck and financial security. Black eyed peas are found in many cultures as a good luck harbinger and collard greens are reminiscent of money.

Hoppin’ John and collard greens

This is a new recipe for me and I have to admit it is not very pretty to look at especially since my last week’s menu had a lot of colorful dishes. I also wish that I had used canned or dried black-eyed peas since my peas had been in the freezer too long and carried with them a taste of the freezer. But the whole thing turned out well. This is the recipe I used as a base for my slimmed down version. To slim it down substitute 7 oz. of turkey sausage and cut the oil down to 2 teaspoons. Also to give it a little more zing I used a poblano pepper instead of a bell pepper.

For the collard greens, first I sautéed a half onion in a little oil and just a sprinkling of sugar to help it brown and added sliced garlic just as the onion was starting to soften. To that I added the chopped collard green stems and a cup of the broth from the Hoppin’ John. Cover and cook until tender. Then I added the chiffonaded collard green leaves and cooked them for a couple of minutes. John gave the collard greens very high marks!

New Year’s Day comes with resolutions and for the first time in a long time my resolution will be to maintain my weight instead of trying to lose weight. I also resolve to continue to post my menus and meals since it really helps me in keeping my first resolution. Knowing what to eat, what to buy, and writing it all down makes maintaining (or losing) weight much easier. Happy New Year!