Happy New Year! Here's a recipe for you

Zannie's Black-Eyed Pea Dip

December 31, 2010 518

PREP TIME:

10 Minutes

DIFFICULTY:

Easy

COOK TIME:

30 Minutes

SERVINGS:

12 Servings

INGREDIENTS

• 1 can (14-ounce) Can Black-eyed Peas
• 1/4 whole Onion, Chopped Fine
• 1/4 cup Sour Cream
• 8 slices Jarred Jalapenos
• 1 cup Grated Sharp Cheddar Cheese
• 3 Tablespoons Salsa
•  Hot Sauce, to taste
•  Salt And Black Pepper To Taste

INSTRUCTIONS

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Drain black-eyed peas and partially mash, leaving some whole.

Add all other ingredients, stirring to combine. 

Spread into a 1 1/2 quart baking dish and bake for 20 to 30 minutes until hot and bubbly. 

Serve with tortilla chips!

*Note: if you have them available, you can use the canned black-eyed peas and jalapenos (they're canned together.) If you do

This is a recipe Pioneer Woman shared five years ago on her blog.  Cliff hates black-eyed peas, but he absolutely loves this dip.  We are back into eating properly and dropping the pounds (we've each lost five pounds since last Saturday thanks to a daily intake of only 1,200 calories), but I'm going to make this and we'll dip with celery and carrots.  I know I could substitute low-fat cheese and low-fat or non-fat sour cream, but I like real food, thank you very much.  I'd rather have the real thing and simply eat less of it.  We are very motivated to lose the fat.    

My four young pullets have started laying.  I still have three older hens who are taking their winter break from laying:  Mama Hen, who has raised chicks for me the last two years; Chickie, the ugly Araucania who was a lone house chick the first part of her life; and a white hen the neighbors gave me.  We had about a month with no eggs between the time the old hens stopped laying and the pullets started.  I mentioned to Cliff the high cost of groceries and he said, "Well, we have our eggs."  

"Don't kid yourself," I told him.  "It costs more to feed this flock that it would to buy eggs at the store."  

I like having chickens around.  There may come a day when I don't.  I think I have Grace the cow sold, along with the two Holstein calves.  I will keep her calf, Luna, and I still have Hope, the soon-to-be yearling heifer.  

(I don't know why the font changes at this point in this entry.)

Here is something I find peculiar:  I have found Mama Hen, the old settin' hen who isn't laying right now, sitting in the nest over the eggs others have laid a couple of times, singing happily to herself.  I reach under her and retrieve the eggs, and she continues to sing to me; she obviously isn't broody.  I guess she is walking down memory lane, thinking of the good old days when she was incubating eggs for me.  I've never seen other hens in molt do this.  I just take my eggs from under her and go on about my business.  

I'm reading a lot, as is usual for both Cliff and me during wintertime, especially since we don't have Cora much in bad weather.  I recently downloaded three Kindle books from the library, and yesterday got an e-mail notice that I have two actual books waiting for me to pick up.  This is what happens when you put books on hold and wait in line:  Sometimes several of them are ready at once.  Once I get the books, I always have the chance of renewing them online, so if they're worth reading I will probably get them read.  

I've always loved to read, and I recall many of my first books:  "Little Black Sambo", "The Little Engine That Could", and other Little Golden Books that weren't so famous.  I also recall my very first big books with chapters.  I had several of the Bobbsey Twin series.  I absolutely couldn't get enough of them!  "The Bobbsey Twins at Home", at the farm, at the beach, flying in an airplane.... I was in the second grade, I believe, when I discovered the wonderful world of "chapter books".  Somebody, I think my teacher Mrs. Eighmy, gave me "Heidi" for Christmas.  I had to struggle through that one.  I loved the parts where Heidi was in the mountains with the goats and Grandfather, eating cheese, but when she wandered elsewhere I'd stop reading until a day when I was bored.  Then I'd take it up again.  I read it through at least twice, but it was never an easy read for me.  However, there was no television, few kids around to play with, and no siblings at home.  So I read.  I think one reason so few kids read these days is that there's so much else around to grab their attention.  I remember "Hans Christian Anderson Fairy Tales", given to me another Christmas by my sister.  I might have been in the third grade then.  I absolutely loved that book and read my favorite stories over and over again.  

I recall two books I received when I was seven years old spending several days in the hospital hooked up to I.V. and puking (they never knew what was wrong with me, I just mysteriously got better).  One was "Cookie"... I found an old copy of that online a few years back and purchased it... and the other was about going to a county fair.  I actually remember the first line of that one:  "I went to the fair, oh, the grand county fair with so much to do and to see everywhere...".  I've never been able to find that one online.  

Anyhow, books have always been a huge part of my life.  Thank God for books!