The season of black-eyed peas approaches. The "season" really is just New Year's Day, when I cook up a huge pot of beans with turkey ham and we eat them with collard or turnip greens, cornbread, and sometimes mashed potatoes. It's a southern thing, and I learned the very complicated (NOT) <a href="http://www.insidevoice.net/archives/2006/01/happy_new_year.html">recipe</a> from Dave's mom.<br /><br />Every other year or so we make a party of it, and invite everyone to roll on over whenever they wake up from the previous night's reveling. What this really means is that instead of partying on New Year's Eve, I'm soaking dried beans and cutting up potatoes and pre-measuring cornbread ingredients. I'm not complaining.<br /><br />Last year I bought a lot of canned black-eyed peas for some reason -- maybe as backup in case my vegetarian recipe turned out badly? But they're still in my cabinet. I've been in a let's-use-up-the-stuff-we-have phase this week, so I pulled out two cans of peas and a can of tomatoes on Friday night, determined to use them for dinner.<br /><br />I sauteed an onion, some celery and some garlic for a few minutes, then added the drained beans, tomatoes with liquid, a dash of cayenne, and a little bit of chicken stock. Cooked that for a while as I mashed some potatoes using the rest of the can of stock.<br /><br />I seasoned with salt, brown sugar, a little bit of worcestershire sauce and vinegar. It turned out pretty well.<br /><br />So now I only have something like six cans to go.