Mmmmm.

(And happy MMIV to you!) That sure was some good food, and I am now quite full of good luck and the promise of great remuneration for the coming year.

I must confess that it was not quite like old timey times--I didn’t have to wash the greens in a #10 washtub, I didn’t have to kill my own hog, I didn’t have to make my fingers bleed by shelling peas--but it was still pretty darned good, nonetheless.

The turnip greens were the 10 ounce frozen kind--open, dump in big saucepan with a hunk of the honey-glazed ham leftover from the piece my mom gave us, set on low, let simmer five hours or so. I like collards, too, but they’re a bit too strong in flavor for the rest of the family, so we stuck with turnip greens. The best is a mess of mixed greens--collards, mustard, and turnip. Serve any of them with a spoonful of pepper sauce, which is not the same thing as red sauce, but the vinegar from pickled peppers--it adds some spiciness and keeps the greens from being greasy. Mmmm!

Black-eyed peas--dried, left over from Catherine’s art project of the gigantic turkey rendered in a variety of dried beans and peas. Always be sure and look them over before cooking to pick out the worm-eaten ones and any rocks or trash. Soak overnight (the peas, not you), change the water, and add another hunk of the honey-glazed ham leftover from the piece my mom gave us, set on low, let simmer five hours or so just like the greens. These usually need a bit more salt than provided by the ham, but go easy on it. I also like to add about a teaspoon of Louisiana Hot Sauce.

Country-style ribs--cover with minced onion, black pepper, salt, and a bit of water in a glass baking dish--cover with foil and shove in oven at 325 degrees for several hours or until they fall apart. I nearly cried when I found out we didn’t have any barbecue sauce--all we had was some A-1 and some of the aforementioned Louisiana Hot Sauce. Turned out pretty good, actually.

Cornbread--again, confession time, but I used a couple of packages of mix and didn’t realize they had some sugar in them until after I had already mixed it all up and poured it in the skillet. It tasted fine, but the very idea of sugar in cornbread is so anathema that I felt like a traitor for eating it. It sure cooked up good, though--beautiful crunchy crust and crumbly inside.

Had it for lunch and supper--it was good both times. What was funny was that Catherine has been on an anti-vegetable jag lately, and had to be strongly urged to eat her greens and peas during lunch. Oddly enough, suppertime came and she actually ASKED for them. She got a few more than she anticipated, however, leading her halfway through to ask if she could just have the amount she had at lunch. “I don’t want all of these stuff--I just want what I had for lunch and THAT’S ALL. Mama, would you take some of these off?”

Reba was about to get frustrated, but I leapt in with my child-like reasoning skills and said, “Cat, I tell you what--just eat away all the extra ones you don’t want, and when you get down to the amount you had at lunch, you can eat that.”

She thought for a second--“Okay.”

Makes perfect sense, don't you think? And worked like a charm--she only had about ten peas left on her plate, and not a single leaf of turnip greens.
posted by Terry at 9:14:00 AM