Hoppin John

I made Hoppin John to eat for New Years. I try to eat black eyed peas on New Years Day, it’s supposed to bring luck.

Noone else around here will look at black eyed peas, much less eat them, so I made a variation on the full fat version.

In my normal version, I use ham, ham hocks (or salt pork) and white rice. And I’ve always used fresh blackeyed peas - they’re much better than canned or frozen.

This year I used frozen. If I had a ham hock, I would have used it and skimmed the fat, but I didn’t have one on hand.

1lb frozen blackeyed peas
2 cups brown rice
garlic cloves - I used 3 but it depends on my mood
3 onions - chopped
Salt
Pepper
Red Pepper - you can use red pepper flakes but I like ground red pepper
Goya Ham Flavoring - adding and tasting until I got the right flavor.

I sauteed the onion in a little olive oil Pam and ham flavoring. Started the rice cooking, put the onion in, then after 20 minutes I added the blackeyed peas to the rice, and added the red pepper. It took 45 minutes total and it was good.

Hopefully it will bring me luck.