Black Eyed Peas

My mother used to make me eat black eyed peas on New Years Day. One for each year I'd lived plus one for good luck in the coming year. I hated black eyed peas as a kid, but now I know that the secret ingredient, as with so many foods, is bacon.

2 Tbsp oil
1 carrot
1 medium yellow onion
2-4 slices of the thickest cut bacon you can find
1 head garlic
1/2 cup white wine
salt, black pepper, red pepper to taste
1/2 to 1 lb dry, presoaked, or canned black eyed peas

1. Heat the oil to medium high in a 2 quart dutch oven. Dice and add the carrot, onion, bacon, and garlic, stirring frequently to prevent burning. (In that order, with as much time in between as it takes you to cut up the next ingredient.)

2. Add the wine and spices, and reduce liquid by half.

3. Add the dry and canned, drained beans and cover with 2 inches of water. Recipe may be completed in advance up to this point.

4. Cover tightly and bake 8 hours at 200 degrees. Cooked beans will keep up to 3 days, refridgerated.

I'd never cooked beans so slow or so long before. You see, I started out with pre-soaked beans from the store, but they were moldy (bad store!). Then I substituted dry beans because we couldn't find any black eyed peas at the store on NYE, then my wonderful boyfriend found canned ones, which I threw in at the last minute. So, we ended up with a pot of half dry (and not pre-soaked) and half canned beans, and I decided our best bet would be to just cook the heck out of them. Turns out, beans are super flexible, and the dry and canned beans are both delicious cooked this way.

We're about to dig in to our black eyed peas, some collard greens cooked with ham, and a big pot of rice.

Happy New Year!