My wife is not a fan of Hoppin' John soup like I am. I pretty close to begged for greens and a bowl of that today (for good luck, not hangover).

Which lucky 'fire members are enjoying that wonderous combo today?

What is Hoppin john soup? I made a batch pf posole! I love that stuff.

Around here Hoppin John is field peas and rice..

What the heck is posole?

Blackeyed peas, ham hocks (or "seasoning meat"....i.e., country ham trimmings).

Pozole or Posole (Pork and Hominy Soup)
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 clove garlic ( I like more)
� pound pork ( I have used pork loin, pork roast, etc) cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1/4 cup all purpose flour
1 medium onion chopped ( about 3/4 cup)
2 cups cooked pinto beans ( a 30 ounce can works well)
1 can (30 ounce) hominy drained
1/2 cup chopped carrot
1/2 cup chopped celery
1/4 cup chopped green chilies (I just use a small can of roasted and peeled, you can use mild or hot)
1 Tbsp chili powder
3 cups chicken broth ( I use 2 15 oz cans)
1 Tsp salt
1/4 Tsp pepper
1 1/2 Tsp dried oregano leaves
1 small onion, chopped (about 1/4 cup)
Heat � cup oil and the garlic in a 3 quart sauce pan or stock pot until hot. Coat pork with flour. Cook and stir over medium heat until brown; remove from saucepan. Cook and stir � cup onion in same saucepan until tender. Stir in pinto beans, hominy, carrot, celery, green chilies and chili powder. Heat to boiling, reduce heat. Cover and simmer 10 minutes.
Stir pork, oregano, chicken broth, salt, pepper into vegetable mixture. Heat to boiling; reduce heat. Cover and simmer 30 minutes. Add � cup chopped onion and the cilantro to mixture prior to serving.

Re: pozole, here's Mannlicher's recipe which is a big favorite in our house (& deer camp). (The link to the original post no longer is working.)

POZOLE (SANTA FE SUPPER)

2 cans (1 lb. 13 oz. each) hominy, drained
About 3 qt. reg. strength chicken broth
2 1/2 lb. boned pork shoulder or butt (fat trimmed), cut into 1 1/2 inch chunks
1 med. size onion, chopped
8 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
2 tbsp. ground dry New Mexico or chiles, or chili powder
1/2 tsp. each dry oregano leaves and pepper
Roasted chilies or 1 can (7 oz.) diced green chilies
Salt
Sour cream and green onions (optional)

In a 5 to 6 quart pan, combine pork, onion, garlic, ground chilies, oregano, pepper and 1 cup broth. Bring to a boil, cover and simmer rapidly on medium heat for 30 minutes. Uncover pan; stir often on medium-high heat until broth evaporates meat is streaked with brown and drippings are richly browned. Add 1 cup broth and stir drippings free. Add hominy, 8 cups broth and roasted chilies.
Bring mixture to a boil, cover and simmer gently until pork is very tender when pierced, about 1 1/2 hours. Add salt, sour cream and green onions to taste. If made ahead, cool, then cover and chill up to 3 days.

Makes about 3 1/2 quarts, 6 to 8 servings.

ROASTED CHILIES:

Place 1 pound fresh poblano (also called pasilla) or chilies in a rimmed 10 x 15 inch pan. Broil 2 to 3 inches below heat until skins are charred, about 7 minutes. Turn chilies; broil until charred, about 4 minutes longer. Drape with foil and let cool. Pull off and discard skins, stems and seeds; rinse chilies and chop.

I tried Sam's and while it is very good, I like my recipe better and I can't tell you why....

Fremont,

Hoppin' John (like many recipes) varies from region to region. I got my basic recipe from my mother, who got it from relatives in the Missouri Ozarks. It is more of a stew than a soup, and uses black-eyed peas, rice and bacon, though a lot of people use some sort of sausage.

My wife and I have made it for New Year's for a long time, varying it somewhat from time to time. With chorizo is it is very good. This year we made it out of some Italian deer sausage my wife made, and it is fine but to my taste needs some green Tabasco to taste just right, and with chorizo it doesn't.

I usually use andouille, but this year had to settle for a different variation of hot Cajun sausage. It turned out quite a bit hotter than normal - pass the Samuel Adams.

My recipe uses salt pork in addition to sausage - blackeyed peas, brown rice, peppers, onions and chicken stock.

OK how about one of you gentlemen posting a recipe????

Yesterday's batch consisted of


1 lb dry blackeyed peas

1 lb brown rice

2 lbs hot sausage

a chunk (1/2 lb?) of salt pork - I chopped it up, fried it and browned the rice in the grease

Cooked the beans and rice together in 5-6 pints of chicken stock. Added a large chopped onion, a bell pepper and for color a small jar of pimentos. Also gave it a hit of Tony Cachere's Cajun Seasoning.

You need to be careful about adding salt if you use salt pork and canned chicken stock.

DARBY,

Yeah, that sounds about like the recipe we use.

This is how we made it yesterday:

A pound of sausage, and either salt pork or bacon if you want more fat. Brown it all in a cast-iron pot.

Then add a cup of so each of chopped onion and bell pepper and cook until lightly browned. We used a red bell pepper but again any will do. We also added three chopped garlic cloves toward the end, not so early that they would burn.

Then we wdded two 15-oz. cans of black-eyed peas and enough water to allow the bean/sausage/veggie mixture to simmer for half an hour.

In the meantime we cooked some rice (brown or white whatever you want; we used brown) and added 3 cups to the mixture, letting it simmer for another 15 minutes.

Some people add a bay leaf during the simmer phase. We've done it both ways. Didn't this time.

As I said in my earlier post, I added green Tabasco sauce to mine. My wife only added salt, as she isn't as fond of hot spices as I am. Using spicy sausage like chorizo or Cajun would of course affect the flavor.

Also noted before is that we tend to make it into more of a stew than a soup.

Man...that sounds good. I hadn't thought about it in years but my Grandmother and an aunt used to make "home-made" hominy. It was so much better than the store-bought canned stuff. Too bad, that's something that's been lost in a generation. I might look into that...somehow. Thanks for the recipe...it looks great. I'll try this for sure.

Elwood

New Years Day at our house:

Black Eyed Peas in ham hocks---Each pea eaten represents a penny made for the new year

Collards in turkey stock---Each green eaten represents a green-back made for the new year

Various pork--Pork eaten represents good luck made for the new year
----Butt
----Ribs
----Roast
----Tenderloin

Mashed Potatoes
Stuffing
Green Beans
Sweet Potatoes
Mac & Cheese
Green tomato/cabbage relish
Cornbread
Sweet Tea
Pecan Pie

Best hang-over food in the whole world!!!!!!

You have to think back years ago, before airplanes, before autos, before trains, before coaches, about the time of chariots. Three guys were sitting around and said "let's put a curse on all the nice guys in the future". One guy said for good luck on New Years Day let's make them eat cabbage. The second said, no, how about black eyed peas. The third said, no, it should be hoppin' john. And that's how it all got started. I had bacon and blackeyed peas with ham and cabbage for New Years. I now know what Rush's problem was in Hawaii.

Thank you.

DARBY

Wow, Jesus could have fed a medium sized city with a pound of black-eyed peas, the way that I eat them. Life is good.

speaking of the home-made hominy, i can barely remember eating it. my Grandparents would make it in the backyard. take oak and hickory ashes, i think, and let them drip water through them into a pan. catch that, and somewhere's along the line, add the Hickory King White corn kernels. the kernels would swell and the outer coat would come off. they cook them in a big 40 gallon washpot over a slow wood fire. i don't know the recipe at all or procedure. but as a young kid i did see it going on. remember the hominy on the plate too. big grains of white hominey. good stuff. might look up the procedures. that natural lye could burn ya, i imagine.

That is some good stuff. I will have to try yours out. It looks better than mine.