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Monday, January 7, 2013

Hoppin' John to It!


 Southerners.
 We're very into traditions, and we have our superstitions.
Ensuring good luck for the coming year is one of these that's also pretty tasty.
 How does a Southerner make sure fortune smiles on her?
Why, a big one pot dinner of pork products!
But what happens if you have vegetarians in the house?
Are they destined for 12 consecutive months of breaking shoe laces and losing keys?
Not with this Momma on the job!
 The first thing we're going to do is get two heavy bottomed 8 quart pots.
On medium heat, add 3 tbsp of olive oil, one large diced onion, 1 tbsp of minced garlic and 1 
tbsp of steak seasoning. Saute until the onions begin to caramelize.
Slice one pound of bacon into one of the pots and saute that until it browns up.
 Deglaze both pots with a little vegetable broth, scraping any browned bits off the bottoms
with a wooden spoon to start a rich sauce.
 You'll nee a package of smoked sausage.
Turkey is fine if you'd like to cut the fat.
 With my carnivores, I actually add two packages.
Slice the sausage into 1 inch chunks.
 Add 2 tablespoons of liquid smoke to the vegetarian pot to substitute for the bacon flavor.
 Follow that with some tofu kielbasa in 1 inch chunks.
 Stir and brown both pots until the sausage browns.
 Mix 2 cans of blackeyed peas...
...and 2 cans of these!
These contain tomato and just a touch of jalapeno.
 Divide the beans between both pots...
 ...and allow this to simmer while you make rice.
Make 6 cups according to directions.
This will take about 20 minutes.
 Show off your new beachy Christmas kitchen towels.
 Add 3 cups of rice to each pot and stir well.
Now, what to serve to make this a perfect Southern meal?
Cat poured in a copper mold?
Okay, maybe not.
Hang that up when it's clean!!!
 Sliced ripe tomatoes.
 Mixed greens with strawberries and sunflower seeds...
 ...splashed with blush wine vinaigrette.
 Corn muffins.
Fried okra.
 Top it all off with pineapple angel food cake...
...and you'll get nothing but smiles.

1 comment:

Bambi said...

looks good :) maaaan, I haven't had fried okra since I lived in the south about 15 years ago. Hmmm, may have to revisit some southern cooking tonight.