"How many peas do I have to eat to get rich?" Eli asked at lunch today, holding a single black-eyed pea up on his fork like it might bite him. Wyatt told him a hundred. Matt told him one is plenty. I explained that the peas are for luck, the greens are for money and the cornbread is for gold, and Eli ate the cornbread.
We eat black-eyed peas and greens every New Year's Day. I grew up with it in Denton, and Matt's family in Tyler does it too, so it's one of the few traditions in this marriage that nobody had to negotiate. This year's pot cost $5.78 for the three things I bought, and it fed all five of us with leftovers for two more meals.
What went in the pot
- 1 pound dried black-eyed peas: $1.49
- 1 smoked ham hock, about a pound: $1.80
- 1 bag chopped collard greens, 1 pound: $2.49
- From the pantry: 1 onion, 3 cloves garlic, a bay leaf, red pepper flakes, cider vinegar, salt and pepper
That's $5.78, about 72 cents a serving across the eight servings we got. I didn't count the onion and the pantry things, partly because they came out of last week's shopping and partly because I'm a bookkeeper on vacation.
Instant Pot timing
I don't soak the peas. Black-eyed peas are small and thin-skinned, and they cook straight from dry without any trouble. The ham hock is the slow part, so it gets a head start.
- Set the Instant Pot to sauté, add a teaspoon of oil and half the onion, chopped, and cook for 4 minutes. Add the garlic for the last minute.
- Add the ham hock, the bay leaf and 6 cups of water. Seal and cook on high pressure for 30 minutes, then quick release.
- Ladle out 2 cups of that smoky broth for the greens. Rinse and pick over the peas (there is always one tiny pebble), add them to the pot, and cook on high pressure for 8 minutes with a 10-minute natural release.
- Pull out the hock, let it cool enough to handle, shred the meat off the bone and stir it back in. Taste for salt last, since the hock is already salty.
Eight minutes plus the natural release gives me peas that are tender but still whole. The first year I tried this I went ten minutes and turned them into mush, which Matt liked and nobody else did.
The greens
While the peas cook, the greens go in my enameled Dutch oven on the back of the stove. I soften the other half of the onion in a spoonful of oil, add the bagged collards in two handfuls so they fit, then pour in those 2 cups of ham broth. A pinch of red pepper flakes, a lid, and about 40 minutes at a low simmer, with a tablespoon of cider vinegar stirred in at the end. Bagged collards save me the washing and stemming, though I still pull out the thick stem pieces that sneak in. Clean as you go applies to bags too.
The liquid left in the bottom of the greens is pot liquor, and Matt drinks it out of a coffee mug with cornbread crumbled in. I'm not going to defend that. I'm not going to stop him either.
Who ate what, and the leftovers
Wyatt had two bowls of peas over rice with hot sauce. Rosie ate her peas one at a time with her fingers, studying each one, and wore a piece of collard on her chin for most of lunch. Eli ate his one lucky pea, then a second one when he heard Wyatt was getting rich faster, then another square of cornbread with butter. I've learned to count that as a win. Biscuit got nothing, despite parking himself under Rosie's booster seat with the focus of a dog who has heard the word "ham."
A pound of dried peas goes a long way, so lunch today was just the start:
- Tomorrow, fend-for-yourself Friday: peas and greens over rice, reheated by the bowl, hot sauce on the table.
- Saturday morning: any leftover greens get chopped fine and folded into migas. Nobody notices but me.
- Sunday: the rest of the peas get thinned with a quart of the turkey stock I froze after Thanksgiving, plus sliced smoked sausage and a can of diced tomatoes. Soup for the first Sunday reset of the year.
Receipt check: $5.78 for New Year's lunch for five, with two more meals still in the fridge.
