kicking in the new year southern stlye

happy new year folks!!!!

with that said, let's discuss my cooking skills. i would say i am a pretty good home cook. not "kick your grandmother down the stairs" good, but perhaps "shoot your momma a dirty look" good. but i do try to satisfy my man. well, actually, i cook for myself with the idea that ray can have some as well. i generally like the food i make, but let's face it folks, sometimes my ideas just don't work. case in point.... deer meat stroganoff served over, instead of egg noodles, wait for it...... pearl barley. what!?! not good. not good at all.
and ray, god bless him, he generally likes what i make as well and will eat it with out complaint and a will toss out the occasional compliment. but nothing makes me feel as good and warm inside as when i get the response that i got tonight at dinner. being new years day an being southern, of course, collard greens and black eyed peas were on the menu. but this year i was looking for a new way to do it up. after i read this post about good fortune soup on homesick texan, i knew that soup was the way to go. but you know me kids, i didn't follow the recipe exactly, but use it more as inspiration. we also cooked up a deer tenderloin and i made some whole wheat bread from a recipe i saw in this months issue of mother earth news.
so let's check out how i kicked off a new year of cooking it up southern style.
oh yeah.... here is the response i got tonight when ray tasted my soup, "damn, that's good!!!!" (he's so eloquent. it just warms my heart. and i'm not kidding.)

gettin things goin.

on the back burner cookin the black eyed peas
and heating up the frozen homemade chickin stock.

local collard greens.

here it is folks. good fortune soup.
may this year be a good one for all.

can you believe it we are still eatin on that deer.
i don't think we have even made a visible dent in the ass load of deer meat in the freezer.
here we have some tenderloin, good fortune soup, and my homemade whole wheat bread that is so soft and tasty.

my "damn, that's good!!!" version of good fortune soup

(just remember folks, i really don't measure when i cook so the following are approximates)

2 cups of homemade chickin stock
2 cups apple cider
a bunch of collard greens
2 cups dried black eyed peas
6 slices of applewood smoked bacon
1 onion - chopped
2 cloves of garlic - chopped
1 big can of whole peeled tomatoes
2-3 tablespoons tomato paste
2-3 tablespoons tamarina sauce
salt and pepper to taste

soak black eyed peas for awhile and then cook until almost tender.
in dutch oven, saute cut up bacon till crisp. set cooked bacon aside and in 2 tablespoons of the grease saute onion till translucent. add in chopped garlic and cook for a bit more. then add 2 cups apple cider and 2 cups chickin broth to the dutch oven, bring to boil. add in the collards and simmer for about 30 minutes. chop tomatoes and add them plus the juice in the can to the pot. also throw in the bacon, tomato paste, tamarina sauce, and the almost done black eyed peas. simmer for another 30-45 minutes. as far as the salt and pepper, i season everything a little at a time as i go.

P.S. so i started this post last night, but i couldn't finish it before my bedtime. therefore, at this time, i have eatin a whole nother bowl of my soup ya'll. and let me tell you it was even better tonight than it was last night. specially since, in my quest not to use the microwave at home, i reheated the soup in my new little cast iron dutch oven, AND, instead of dirtyin a whole nother pan, i cut up the left over tenderloin and threw that in the soup as well. speakin of my new little cast iron dutch oven, don't let me forget that i still need to tell ya'll bout my super cool toys i bought myself for christmas. but for now i must go and surf the net and play on facebook.