It's a Southern tradition to eat black eyed peas and collard greens on New Year's day. If you dig down far enough, you'll find I'm a Southern boy in my heart. In fact, one of the "worst" insults I can hurl at my brother Phil is "yankee"- he was born in Connecticut and went to school in New York. But he HATES being called a yankee (but oddly "yank" is ok since that's what our unenlightened Aussie friends call all 'Mericans).

In any case, black eyed peas = good luck for the coming year. And collard greens = wealth (green = money, get it?). I usually sub out the collards for roasted brussels sprouts, or kale.

And I totally stole this recipe from Emeril.

I also usually do some sort of feat of strength on New Year's Day in the morning. I usually do a trail run, but I think this year I'm going to do Atomic Athlete's Christmas Eve pain-fest:

80# sandbag
100x Burpees over Sandbag
100x Sandbag Back Squats
100x Sandbag Get-ups

On to the recipe.

Southern Black Eyed Peas

• 1 pound GF smoked sausage, chopped
• 1 medium size yellow onion, chopped
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne
• 4 cloves garlic, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 5 sprigs fresh thyme
• 4 bay leaves
• 3 teaspoons fresh parsley, chopped
• 8 cups chicken stock
• 1 pound black eyed peas (fresh is best, dried is still great, frozen will work) (if you use dried peas, be sure to soak them overnight)

Directions

Happy new year!