- pork spare ribs with sauerkraut
- mashed potatoes
- sauteed baby spinach with blackeyed peas and bacon
In my family of origin we always ate pork and sauerkraut on New Year's Day. I don't know why, we just DID. Every single person in my family, on both sides. I'm relatively certain they all still do.
I usually do a pork loin with sauerkraut in the crockpot, but this year I got a wild hair and made SPARE RIBS with sauerkraut in the crockpot! I know! Crazy! All I did was cut the spare ribs into slabs of 3-4 ribs each, salt and pepper them, brown them off in a skillet, then stack them in the crockpot (making Xes with them as I went). I drained a jar of sauerkraut and kind of dumped it on top, poking it down in the spaces between the ribs, then sprinkled a little brown sugar on top. Cook on low for 9-10 hours and Bob's your uncle. WAY yummy, too!
The mashed potatoes? FROZEN ORE-IDA. The boy child ate about four helpings.
Now we come to the Texas portion of the meal. Down here, they are all about the blackeyed peas and greens on New Year's Day. I dunno why, something to do with money or good luck or something. I don't question it. I just DO IT. Because you HAVE TO.
So anyway, what I did there was to chop up a couple of slices of bacon and brown them off, toss in some (rinsed, drained) canned blackeyed peas, then add two packages of fresh baby spinach and let it wilt down, tossing it constantly to work the un-wilted leaves to the bottom. You need to do this in a big pan, but it'll cook down to almost nothing. When the spinach was wilted to my satisfaction, I stirred in some red wine vinegar and a bit of sugar, then seasoned with salt and pepper. Delicious!
So. What did YOU have for dinner tonight? Any traditional foods for good luck in the new year?
3 comments:
also with the pork-and-sauerkraut here.
unfortunately pittsburgh also has this nasty tradition of a Good Luck pretzel, which I am convinced is the supermarket bakeries' ploy to get rid of all their stale cookie dough from Christmas. It's paste-tasting dough, shaped in the tradiitonal pretzel shape, spackled with sugary icing and ground nuts (if you are lucky). It's REVOLTING and my mil insists we eat it.
I did a smoked/cured leg of lamb (which we affectionately call a lambham) - I cooked it like a piece of corned beef - in a big pot full of water with bay leaves, onions, carrots and peppercorns.
Normally served with mash, white sauce and veggies, it was a bit hot for that, so I made a potato salad w/ egg and shallots and a dressing made of yoghurt and lite sour cream.
And a beautiful loaf of sourdough warmed in the oven.
And naturally - as it was New Years Day - a pavlova with whipped cream (whipped with a little brown sugar - yummm) and passionfruit. There should have been some strawberries and other berries on there, even mango, but I was a bit disorganised, so just some passionfruit this time.
It was pretty low key due to my negative frame of mind - although a friend came over and her presence cheered me up immensley.
whoops, I meant immensely?
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