Happy New Year! A Vegetarian Guide to Black-Eyed Peas, Cornbread, and Greens for January 1, 2017

We're so ready for the arrival of 2017 on Sunday, and we're happy to close out the holiday season well, finish up 2016 in style, and enjoy the brand-new start! One of the best things about this past year was the November release of our second cookbook, The Chubby Vegetarian (Susan Schadt Press, 2016). Getting the chance to share how we cook during the week was such an awesome opportunity after sharing all of our homegrown favorites in The Southern Vegetarian (Thomas Nelson, 2013). After being encouraged throughout this year to create more videos for our You Tube channel, if only to provide a steady stream of TCV entertainment to family members who love this sort of thing, we have taken the advice to heart and will be posting more about our recipes in the weeks to come.

So we have some exciting (or are they daunting? maybe the best ones are?) resolutions involving TCV and our health this year. Taking the leap into getting a gym membership and lifting weights the past few days in order to beat the rush back to the gym has been quite a new step. Adding something besides running into the mix has been a goal of ours for a while now, and we have already picked up on the 'push day, pull day, leg day' lingo. We'll see how all of this goes and will report back.

But hey, more importantly, we made sure to pick up some dried black-eyed peas from the bulk section of Whole Foods yesterday and have some fun ideas about how to cook them this weekend. We tend to mix it up and do a different beans, greens, and cornbread dish most years; below are some of our favorites from years past. Maybe these recipes will help you find a fun way to prepare your own good-luck meal come Sunday. We're going to make ours at lunch and then have ramen for dinner, which always sounds like a really good plan.

Hope y'all all have a safe and happy New Year's Eve and a relaxing New Year's Day. We so appreciate you reading here and cooking vegetarian along with us. Looking forward to a wonderful 2017 with all of you!

A Really Good Pot of Black-Eyed Peas

Classic Black-Eyed Peas

Cornbread Crepes and Smoky Black-Eyed Peas

Black-Eyed Pea Burger

Black-Eyed Pea and Collard Greens Quiche

Hoppin' John Black-Eyed Pea Butter

Gluten-Free Cornbread Waffles

Smoked Cheddar and Jalapeño Cornbread

Whitney's Coconut Greens 

TCV Collard Greens