New Years Dinner

Happy New Years everyone! In keeping with family tradition, I had to cook up this meal!My Grandma's traditional New Years meal.

For as long as I can remember, my Grandma always cooked this meal on New Years day. This meal must be a part of a lot of people's families, because I could not find any black eyed peas yesterday! This morning I found some at another store. So the menu consists of black eyed peas, collard greens with ham hock, rice, cornbread, and fried chicken. I also threw in a couple pieces of fried fish and some green beans with bacon and onion. The meal is supposed to represent different things for the New Year. Black Eyed Peas represent luck and Collards Wealth. I'm sure there are many variations on this meal. Here are some shots of our own New Years meal! I was in the kitchen all daaaay!
Collards and Ham Hocks



Fried Chicken

Fried Whiting


Green Beans w/Onion and Bacon
Black Eyed Peas



I hope everyone had a great New Years. I hope 2009 will be a good one for all!

~Feather
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Mom's Home Cooking

Hi everyone! I must apologize for the lack of posts. We have been really busy! With that said, my Mom is in town for the holidays! So I haven't done much cooking! LOL

My Mom is visiting from San Diego, CA where she is the Food Service Director for the YMCA. She cooks for hundreds of people on a daily basis and is an excellent chef. Since she's been here she has been whipping up tasty meals for the family! The kids really enjoy her cooking. She and the kids have been doing Christmas cookies. She even made some for Nya's class to decorate. I'll have to feature those on another post. There is so much food in this house, I haven't had time to snap shots of everything.

Tonight we had a nice big dinner! My Mom started preparing food yesterday! She cooked everything by herself. All that hard work paid off, because the meal was soooo good! I'll give a quick break down of each dish so you can see what was on the menu.


She did a whole Roasted Chicken. She put herbs and butter under and on top of the skin. Then poured fresh squeezed lemon juice all over, and roasted in the oven.


There was a roasted Prime Rib seasoned with herbs and spices. It was delicious! Very tender!


Roasted Herb Finger Potatoes, which were also very tasty.


Brusell Sprouts with bacon and onion. These were good, she used the bacon with the Maple syrup in it. Yum!


Red Rice. This is Guamanian dish. This rice is made with rice, peas and Achuete Annatto Powder. Then you top it with fresh Green Onion and Bacon!

Then the labor of love! She had to prepare these the night before. She did Pork, Cheese, and Fruit Tamales. These were soooooo good! Just thinking about them, makes me want some more! lol Topped with Mrs. Renfros green salsa, these were excellent.


We also had Hawaiian Sweet bread, Asparagus, and a Green Salad. This was a great meal! We ate it up. Hopefully I can feature one more dish before she leaves. I'll have to get the recipes too. It's always nice to get a break from cooking once in a while. Especially to enjoy some good eats!





~Feather


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