New Year's Day

What's on your New Year's Day menu?  I have a couple of southern traditional "must haves". 

Must have #1 is black-eyed peas (for good luck). I cook fresh black-eyed peas with onion, bell pepper, green onion, some chopped tomato, a little bacon or ham for seasoning and S & P. 

Must have # 2 is cabbage (for financial prosperity).  I boil chopped cabbage and let much of the water boil away, add a little olive oil and red pepper flakes plus S & P.

S & P for me is always Kosher salt and fresh ground pepper, usually black, but I grind white peppercorns (great in mashed potatoes) and mixed red/black/green for some dishes.

The rest of my menu is undetermined as of this moment. I'll be running to the grocery store in the morning. Thinking about fried chicken and mashed potatoes to go with my peas and cabbage.

What are you cooking for New Year's Day?

Eggplant Rolatini

I prepared Eggplant Rolotini with my daughter Ryan. This tomato sauce is so yummy we wanted to eat it like soup!

 Making fresh ricotta was remarkably easy and delicious! Taste test this.

The delicious filling includes fresh ricotta cheese, lemon, lemon zest, thyme and breadcrumbs.

 Frying my eggplant* slices in olive oil. Cooked in batches, this part goes very quickly.

 Ryan started rolling while I finished frying the eggplant This is the result before baking...forgot to take picture of the final product in the pan. Too excited!

My daughter Jessica emailed a link to this recipe a few days ago. With youngest daughters Ryan and Hayley home from college for the holidays we have been trying some new recipes and cooking up old favorites quite a bit.  Preparing tomato sauce and ricotta from scratch seemed daunting but I had help.

Ryan and I prepared the dish together, which saved time as Ryan took charge and delegated the eggplant prep to me while she started the tomato sauce and fresh ricotta. I love it when my daughters take charge in the kitchen.

Using my mandoline I was able to slice the eggplant* perfectly. Ryan is still (wisely) scared of my mandoline because once I sliced the skin off my little finger when she was younger (that hurt!). I'm a bit scared of the madoline, too. Sometimes being scared is smart. I was careful. All 5 fingers on my right hand are intact and pain free tonight. Some good safety tips for using the mandoline to slice vegetables can be found here.

We ate every bite! This recipe is perfect for 4 people.  You can find the full recipe, including links to the tomato sauce and ricotta recipes, at Alexandra's Kitchen. Her photos are better than mine, too. I have a learning curve ahead of me!

* Fortunately I asked Ryan (yes, she eagerly did the shopping!) to buy 2 eggplants because 1 eggplant did not seem like enough. It took both eggplants, average in size, to get enough slices for the final dish. <3