Black Eyed Peas and Collard Greens Recipe for New Years 🥬🌽🥘🍷🍾🥂 | A Southern Tradition for Prosperity

This black eyed peas and collard greens recipe is a new year's tradition in the south. In southern culture, people eat certain foods on New Years Day or Eve that mean symbols of good luck and prosperity in the new year. The small, numerous black eyed peas symbolize having a lot of coins, the collard "greens" represent money because they are the same color as money in the United States, the yellow cornbread symbolizes gold, and the ham is a symbol of moving forward in the new year because, unlike chickens and turkeys, they can't scratch backwards--only forwards. Although the new year's tradition of black eyed peas and collard greens with cornbread is easy to make, there are still a few things to keep in mind. In this video I am going to go over the step-by-step process of how to make this traditional southern black eyed peas and collard greens recipe. Once you know how to make this dish, it is actually quite easy. The first step in my black eyed peas and collard greens recipe is making a stock by boiling ham hocks in vegetable stock. Once the ham hocks have infused the vegetable stock with smoky flavor, add the dried black eyed peas and collard green stems. I prepped the collard greens the day before by chopping the stems and leaves, putting the two parts into separate bags, and then freezing the greens. Prepping and freezing the collard greens ahead of time makes this traditional recipe very easy, so I highly recommend it. After the collard greens stems for half an hour, it is then time to add the flat part of the leaf. Cooking the stems an additional 30 minutes softens them, so if you follow my recipe, you won't have to eat tough collard greens stems for new year's. If you want to eat cornbread with your black eyed peas and collard greens, start gathering the ingredients for the cornbread when you add the flat part of the collard green leaves. I highly suggest using my skillet cornbread recipe that I will link below. I didn't have any buttermilk, so I used sour cream, 1/4 milk, and the rest water. It was absolutely delicious, so I may use sour cream from now on. About an hour after boiling the black eyed peas on medium heat, they will be almost done. Unless you want them very soft, almost mushy, I suggest turning down the heat to very low, if not off, in order to slow down the cooking process. This is also just before the point when you will want to put the cornbread into the oven. Just remember to not mix the wet ingredients with the dry ingredients for the batter until the skillet is piping hot and you are ready to pour the cornbread batter into the pan. About 10 to 15 minutes before serving, I added some leftover ham I had from my Christmas ham shank. Although the ham hocks added a lot of flavor, they did not have much meat, so adding more ham was a nice addition. The extra ham added not only protein but also even more flavor, so if you have leftover ham from Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, or Sunday dinner, I highly suggest adding some to your black eyed peas and collard greens on New Years day. I also warmed up larger pieces of leftover ham. Although the black eyed peas and collard greens had ham, larger pieces of ham were a welcome addition to this meal, making it even heartier. This traditional southern black eyed peas and collard greens recipe for new year's will probably take about 2 hours from the point when you add the dry black eyed peas to the ham hock stock to when you serve. Although this recipe is easy, there are two things to keep in mind. First, keep the sequence of steps in mind so that the black eyed peas, collard greens, and cornbread are all ready at the same time. However, this recipe is very forgiving, so if something is taking longer to cook than planned, turn down the heat on another pot or wait to do something. Second, be very careful of adding salt. Ham hocks and smoked ham are already salty, so make sure that you do not use a vegetable stock with a lot of sodium. You probably won't need to add any salt at all, but if you do, add it at the end. Otherwise, your meal may be too salty. Like I said, this black eyed peas and collard greens with cornbread and ham recipe is a New Year's tradition said to bring prosperity, money, and good luck in the new year. This traditional southern meal has a lot of symbolism, so be sure to appreciate both the flavor and the meaning. 🥬🌽🥘🍷🍾🥂 Skillet Cornbread Recipe:    • Skillet Cornbread Recipe   For more information about Southern food and Argentine cuisine, please visit my website: http://www.parnellthechef.com Social Media Links:   / parnellthechef     / parnellthechef     / parnellchef