Traditional New Year’s Day Dinner…Sorta

I’ve grown up eating black eye peas and collard greens on New Year’s Day for good luck and fortune, so I had been planning to eat these two sides, though I had no clue how to cook them.  I also wasn’t sure what to do with the NY strip steak I picked up earlier in the day with hubby.  After much research, I found several recipes I adapted to create our New Year’s Day Dinner.

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I happily readied my brand spankin new stainless steel pots and pans and my green, vintage pyrex baking dish.

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Since the black eye peas were supposed to be cooked the longest, I started on those first.  I had a hard time actually finding a recipe for canned black eye peas.  I also had a hard time finding a recipe without bacon or ham hock.  I’m sure those recipes with the meats would be quite tasty, but since I knew I was using some bacon to cook the collard greens, putting them in the black eye peas sounded like bacon overload.  I ended up basing my cooking loosely off of this recipe (click) I found on cooks.com.  I didn’t have jalapenos, so basically, I sauteed some chopped onion for about 60 seconds in a pot with a teaspoon of olive oil.  I added garlic and sauteed that for about 45 seconds and then added a can of un-drained black eye peas.  I brought this to a boil, covered, lowered the heat and simmered until everything else was ready.  The recipe said to cook the peas for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, but since the canned peas were already soft, I figured I could go with less cooking time.

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Next, I got started on the collard greens.  I did a variation on Dave Lieberman’s Braised Collard Greens, Mustard Greens, and Red Swiss Chard recipe I found on foodnetwork.com.  I only had collard greens, so I halved the liquid ingredients (chicken broth/stock, apple cider vinegar) and the sugar.  I also only used 2 slices of bacon.  The recipe turned out great, but I wish I could have cut the collard greens smaller and used a wee-bit less sugar.  I know for next time, though. 🙂

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While I worked on the collard greens, hubby put together our Jiffy cornbread and got it into the oven.

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I searched a long time for a good steak recipe.  I thought about just pan-searing the steak and eating it with A1, but since tonight’s dinner was going to be special, I figured I’d look for something a little more fancy.  I ended up using two recipes – Steak au Poivre from Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook Special Edition (the pink Susan G Komen version) and Alton Brown’s Pan Seared Rib Eye recipe from foodnetwork.com.  I used an old Rachael Ray trick to crush the peppercorns by putting about a tablespoon of whole peppercorns into a plastic bag and then bashing the heck out of them with a frying pan.

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We actually go the peppercorns from my parents for Christmas…how convenient, no?  Hubby, the flame-tongued-one, got more peppercorns than me, of course.

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I prepared the NY strip steaks following the BHG recipe and cooked them following Alton Brown’s (seared 3 mins per side, in oven 2 minutes per side).

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The cornbread came out of the oven just in time to make room for the steaks to finish cooking at a higher temp.

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Then, all I had to do was make the sauce.  I used the BHG recipe and the 2 parts beef broth version.  I really think Brandy would have made the dish extra tasty, but I didn’t have it on hand.

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Once the sauce was done cooking, it was time to eat!

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And eat we did!  The meal was super yummy.  I loved all the (slightly-altered) recipes I tried – they were delish!  The collards and black eye peas were the “traditional” part of the meal and the steak was just what we felt like eating that night.  I’m not sure Steak au Poivre is supposed to go with collard greens and black eye peas, but hubby and I enjoyed the combo, so I guess that’s all that matters.

Did you eat anything special for New Year’s Day?

1 thought on “Traditional New Year’s Day Dinner…Sorta”

  1. Those pans are gorg! Love them. For the cornbread, did I ever send you the Bourbon Butter recipe that I procured for some amazing cornbread?

    NY dinner was leftovers from the NYE dinner earlier. And that's probably going to be tonight's dinner as well *LOL* So much bread pudding left over – yikes!

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