Happy New Year!  Have some deliciousness.

Ingredients

• 2 cups black eyed peas
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 ham shank
• 1 large onion chopped
• 2 ribs celery chopped
• 1 green pepper chopped (hello trinity)
• 6 garlic cloves, crushed
• 3 bay leaves
• 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
• cooked white rice

Directions

1. Soak beans with water and baking soda
2. In dutch oven, sear ham shank a couple minutes all around, evac
3. Reduce heat, sweat veggies
4. Return shank to pot, add water to just cover
5. Boil, return to simmer, cover and cook 2 hours.
6. Skim scum a few times
7. After 2 hours add peas, bay, red pepper
8. Bring to a boil, then reduce to simmer
9. Cook 1 hour, uncovered
10. Meanwhile make rice
11. At the end of an hour, evac meat.  Shred – remove really fatty parts.  Return meat to pot.
12. Adjust seasoning
13. Serve over rice

Props

If you haven’t figured out by now that the NYT cooking site is awesome.  Maybe the original source of this recipe puts you over the edge.