Happy New Year

A few years ago, before I started this blog, I downloaded a free recipe organizer called YUM!
It's simple but cute and effective. I hadn't realized until I went and looked for it again today that it's a Mac OS X app. Sorry, Windows, but {00h} it gives me thrills to promote Mac software. Freeware!
The only recipe I have ever saved in YUM! is one I dreamed up for black-eyed peas, shredded ham shanks and chopped cabbage, way back when I downloaded the recipe program. I don't especially like Hoppin' John, the traditional New Year's Day meal of black-eyed peas and rice. Too sludgy. But I was wild about my own dish. I was so taken by it, I had to do an Internet search to learn if black-eyed peas, ham and cabbage was "real."
It is. I somehow channeled a genuine keeper, and it's got New Year's good luck written all over it. And it was so good, I had to archive it.
At the end of the recipe I stored in my YUM! I wrote, "You will cry, it's so good."
We had some today, and... It's that good.
THIS IS NOT A RECIPE BLOG, but here's my New Year's gift to you. Warning: It's a "Cookiecrumb-style" recipe, so there are no measurements.

BLACK-EYED PEAS AND CABBAGE

Ingredients:
Dried black-eyed peas
Smoked ham shanks
Green cabbage
Celery leaves
Carrot
Onion
Bay leaf
Dried oregano
Dried parsley
Cayenne
White pepper
Garlic powder

Proportions: Beans are the basis of this dish. Use about a quarter or a third, by volume, of ham shanks to soaked beans. Use about a third, by volume, of chopped, plain green cabbage (before cooking).

1. Soak dried, picked-over black-eyed peas in water for a few hours (or use fresh, or fresh-frozen).

2. Cook smoked ham shanks (sawed by the butcher into 1” rings would be nice) in water to cover with some celery tops, a split carrot, some chopped onion, and generous pinches of the following dried spices: a bay leaf, some crumbled oregano, garlic powder, cayenne, white pepper, (salt — careful), and maybe even some hokey dried parsley. Cook a long time, until really tender (adding boiling water if needed).

3. When tender, remove meat to cool. Strain broth into a bowl and discard vegetable slush (but save bay leaf).

4. Return broth and bay leaf to pot and add drained, soaked black-eyed peas. Cook until tender. Correct seasonings.

5. While beans cook, clean and shred the meat. Poke the marrow from the bones, if possible, into the beans and broth.

6. Add chopped cabbage and the meat. Cook, with lid off, until cabbage is just right, probably just a few minutes.

7. You will cry, it's so good.