We're Sporting Black-Eyed Peas for the New Year!

On New Year’s Day our friends and family gather at our parents' party barn in the Livermore hills. We have a potluck-style meal with enough food for about 50 more people than actually attend — no one has ever gone home hungry, that’s for sure.

Besides eating and socializing, a hike is usually on the agenda. The last activity of the day is the game that everyone plans for all year long: white elephant bingo. Throughout the year all of the regular attendees collect “prizes” for the white elephant bingo. The white elephant prizes are items such as the bath and body lotion set someone received as a gift and did not want, bottles of wine, books, picture frames, dishes, tasteless T-shirts, baseball caps, candies, teas, a western belt — you name it, we’ve probably had it as a prize.

Toward the end of the game some of the prizes left are really quite undesirable and the bingo players will quit calling out bingo for fear they are going to have to go home with worse junk than they brought. It never fails that my kids come home with some of the junk, i.e. prizes that I brought.

Since eating black-eyed peas on New Year's Day is thought to bring prosperity in the New Year, we usually have a bowl of cowboy caviar, which is an appetizer that contains black-eyed peas, to serve to our guests on New Year’s Day. So that you too can be prosperous in the New Year, we’re sharing the recipe with you!

Cowboy Caviar

• 2 tablespoons white vinegar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons olive oil
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 jalapeño pepper, seeds removed and minced
• 2 firm, ripe avocados, cut into 1/2-inch dice
• 1 (15-ounce) can black-eyed peas, drained and rinsed
• 1 (14-ounce) package frozen corn kernels, thawed
• 1 red onion, finely chopped
• 2/3 cup chopped fresh cilantro
• 4 to 6 tomatoes, coarsely chopped
• Salt and pepper
• 1 bag tortilla chips (approximately 13-ounces)

In a large bowl, whisk together the vinegar, oil, garlic, and pepper. Add the avocado to the vinegar mixture and gently toss. Add the peas, corn, onion, cilantro, and tomatoes to the avocado mixture; mix gently. Season with salt and pepper to taste and mix gently. Spoon into a dish and serve with the tortilla chips. Serves 12. Note: A few dashes of tabasco sauce can be used to add a bit of zip instead of the jalapeño pepper. Recipe submitted to The Holm Family Cookbook by Nancy Calhoun Mueller.

Cheers and here’s to a Happy New Year!

Merry Calhoun Carter and the other members of the Holm Family