Hello and welcome back to The Stone Soup Cook–I’m so glad you’re here!
Happy New Year and I hope you had a very enjoyable holiday! For some, that means partying, for others, hunkering down with steaming mugs of hot chocolate and a good book. For us, it meant flying to Denver to pick up this little rescue:
Meet Rocky:
He’s about 8 months old, part Shih-Tzu, part Bichon Frise, part Pekingese, part Poodle and the rest rubber bands as far as we can tell. He’s adorable, sweet and a silly puppy and we simply adore him. My natural state is with a dog at my feet and not having one for the last six months has been pure torture.
I never take any chances and always, always, always eat black eye peas at New Years. I believe that pennies found head up are also lucky. So…I guess I do believe in luck on some level. But it’s a loose belief. What I do know is that I believe that there are situations in life that come along that have no other explanation than divine intervention, and I think God’s hand was involved here. Rocky came to us by way of a Denver area shelter. Long story short, we learned about him via family and just knew he needed to join our little family. And the natural order of things, a dog at my feet as I write, has now been restored. And just like that, I have found joy again.
But back to black eye peas: today, in addition to news of my new puppy, I want to share a couple more fun ways to use up your leftover black eye peas. Look–I realize that black eye peas are not everyone’s cup of tea, so you might have most of the pot leftover after everyone has helped themselves to their requisite single pea so as to not tempt the fates of luck in the New Year.
Last week, I shared a recipe for Skippin’ Jenny fritters and today, I’m sharing a recipe for leftover black eye pea chili:
And for loaded baked potatoes:
And at the end of this, I asked myself: have I gone too far with milking the lucky out of these peas? After all, Hoppin’ John is lucky, Skippin’ Jenny is even luckier, so does that make black eye pea chili even luckier? And luckier still, using the last bits of the leftover chili to make loaded baked potatoes? I guess I have to say that using up all your leftovers is just good policy. And if good luck comes with it, I’ll take all of it I can get because–loose belief or not–why not?
Until next time, I wish you–
Peace, love and good food,
Keri
