Happy New Year Glenda. So sweet of you to help your friend get through her "firsts" without her husband.

My kids have gone back to their places so it's just DH and me. I have a small pork tenderloin that I browned tonight. I will put it in sauerkraut tomorrow and let it slow cook. Will also have mashed potatoes and dumplings. Probably some corn or carrots also. Mmmmmm, dumplings, I can't wait haha..

Hopefully we are going to have our Christmas today. Our menu, at least what I know of it will be, turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, gravy, dressing, candied sweet potatoes, peas, broccoli, corn, deviled eggs, coleslaw, raw vegetables,cherry pie, pumpkin pie, date pudding, assorted Christmas cookies, pistachio dessert, and yeast rolls. I am not fixing all of it, but providing a lot of it. Happy New Year.

Sue

After a high caloric dinner out yesterday, followed by dessert at my home, not to mention Christmas last week, I am looking forward to eating very sparsely today.

My chore for today will be taking the ornaments off the tree and packing things up.

Robert and I are enjoying bloody mary's this morning with a breakfast of bacon, eggs, and fruit.

We're having some close friends over for a supper by the fire.....a couple of soups and a couple styles of chilli with all the fixins. Locally brewed beer on ice, corn breads, mixed greens salad.

Everybody is contributing to the supper; I'm cooking a 15 bean concoction with a smoked ham hock, one kind of corn bread, chilli toppings, and the cozy fire. There will be six or seven of us.

Traditional New Year's Day dinner is corned beef and cabbage, with potatoes and carrots; black-eyed peas and cornbread.

Can't imagine starting a New Year without black-eyed peas!!

Prime rib, broccoli, green beans, cheap wine

Prime rib here for just the two of us. As much as we enjoy family and friends, we try to keep new years day to ourselves - we're looking forward to a quiet day.

I really would have a hard time selecting the home to be invited to from all the menus above. Guess I'll just have to stay home and have my own. I have great northern beans in the crockpot. Will add the leftover ham that my son provided for me for Christmas. That's just a small 'gift' to him for all he does for me. I have a pork roast thawed and will put that on to cook with sauerkraut later on, along with mashed potatoes. Will share that with him too. That's the traditional foods for New Yrs for a lot of people in our area.

Shirley

Stuffed cabbage.

rib eye steak, baked potato and salad

All these meals sound wonderful! Not sure what we will have for dinner, since DH hasn't been feeling well and has little appetite.

I'm getting my greens, beans and pork all in one :o)

beef barley soup and fresh baked rolls

Everyone's meals sound great. We're headed over to my step-sister's and family. Lasagna and caesar salad, rolls, and homemade cookies, squares and carrot cake.

My family, for generations back, begins the New Year with black-eyed peas with hog jowl or any cheap cut of pork (these are seasonings, not a main meat ), collard greens, and usually cornbread. I must add the vinegar sauce from a bottle of Trappey's Hot Peppers in Vinegar!

Mom is upset that I cannot find old-fashioned hog jowls here. I use ham hocks instead, and I picked up a small smoked pork chop to add to Wes' plate. I forget to get fresh collards or kale last week while in town so I have to do with what the small convenience store here had on hand - frozen whole leaf spinach. It's a leafy green so it will do, and Wes loves spinach.

I cooked my peas and ham hock yesterday. I added onions, garlic, diced green peppers, and diced tomatoes to the pot. To help reduce some of the fat I slow simmer the ham hock separately the day before, let it cool overnight, and remove the solidified fat before finely chopping the hock to add to the peas. At least it gives me an illusion of almost healthy!

We'll have a small bowl of the flavorful peas for lunch with a side of spinach. We're going to the neighbors' for supper; I don't know what they'll be having, but I know it will be good.

When I first got here I couldn't find "Trappey's Hot Peppers in Vinegar" anywhere. I was distraught! I moaned to my mom and to my best friend that I could never enjoy any type of greens, beans, or peas without Trappey's.

That Christmas I received a box from Mom with six bottles in it. My friend also sent me six bottles. I was in pepper sauce Heaven and used every drop of every bottle.

The commissary now carries it, and I try to always have three bottles in the house.

When a bottle gets low on the vinegar, I remove the inner cap, poke the peppers with a skewer and refresh them with a top off of hot vinegar and a bit of salt. I do this only once. When that batch of vinegar is gone I use the key from my chatelaine to remove another well guarded bottle from the treasure room! Through the centuries the women of the household have had to lock and guard their tea, sugar, white flour, herbs, etc. I guard my pepper sauce! LOL

We use the peppers, too, usually in any dish calling for red pepper flakes.

We would never do New Year with out black eyes and cabbage for health and wealth! I am oven roasting a Boston butt pork roast stuffed with onions and garlic, wonderful gravy from the roast, rice, sautéed cabbage, black eyes with tasso, and I will bake a sweet potato whole for me since hubby doesn't like them.

Happy New Year and a wonderful year ahead!

Caroline, we always had a bottle of those Trappey's on the table, my dad had to have his Trappey's and he too would add more vinegar to the bottle. I love to add pepper juice to my bowl of gumbo and several other dishes including my black eyes. Luckily I can buy it here in the Houston area but in some areas we had to stock up on our trip to Louisiana.

New Years wouldn't be New Years without Hoppin John.

A good German meal of pork loin roast, homemade spiced red cabbage and potato dumplings. Dessert is leftovers from last night, some fruit cake and cannoli.

Did the kitchen tear out in the remodel yesterdayl. Only have a microwave to use in the butlers pantry. So poured Stokes green chili over nachos. :0) DH said it's one of his favorite meals.....he's easy to please.

Served tuscan bean soup and hoe cake with friend, and she loved it. She had never had hoe cake and loved it.