Black Eyed Peas and FAIL

Every New Year, we are supposed to eat "good luck" foods.  I don't really know if this works, but I'm going to go with it since last year I didn't do this and some not-so-good things went on in there.  While in reality things might be exactly as they are supposed to be, they kind of stung, so to me this year, "having good luck" means "avoiding suffering." What foods are good luck, you ask? Well, really, since every culture has their own superstitions, pretty much anything goes.....noodles, fish, round baked goods (really, I read it on the Internets). In the South, black eyed peas and collard greens, and some throw in red rice for good measure (it contains bacon, so I am for it). Apparently collard greens symbolize that foldin' money, and black eyed peas (sometimes cooked with a dime in them?? Did no one ever tell you how DIRTY money is?) show prosperity because they increase in size when cooked. Pork products symbolize moving forward because of the way pigs root (I'm not really sure if that is true but because Wikipedia says so, it must be). Furthermore, during the War of Northern Aggression, the damned Yankees didn't steal these items because they thought they were only good for animal fodder. Personally, I love all the many and varied gifts that come in pig-shaped packages, have never been known to leave a carb behind, and though I am not really a fan of black eyed peas, I will like them because the Yankees didn't. I'm sticking to the rice and peas though because I don't like collards (there I said it) and Northerners have yet to show me an opinion on them.

Now, this is a first for me; I have not exactly made these things before.  Yes, I have made beans of various types and it has not ever turned out well.  They soak for hours and cook for even more hours and are still hard and don't taste very good. I'm already sweating the planning for the bean cooking because I know they are going to annoy and disappoint me, but that's nothing I haven't experienced before.

What is truly new is this red rice thing. I hadn't thought about it much until over Christmas, when a certain someone who shall remain nameless informed me that red rice is a giant pain in the A**. This hadn't occurred to me since I was pretty sure I had mastered the Art of Boiling Water. So the first thing I did after a 7-hour drive back up to DC on Sunday was leap out of the car and look up a recipe so I could begin to prepare myself for this, and did you know it is made in a casserole dish? I don't even know if I have the right recipe but this is what I am going with. So, for your cooking pleasure, a completely untested, possibly incorrect recipe that I will be making tomorrow. And since I plan on being hung over (Hi, Mom!), it will be even more heinous challenging.

Savannah Style Red Rice

4 to 6 9-12 slices bacon
1 medium onion, chopped
2 ribs celery, chopped (Celery only comes in large amounts though so I am skipping this)
1/2 bell pepper, chopped (UM or a whole one since they don't come in HALVES)
2 cups uncooked rice (I estimated that I have enough and didn't buy more. Considering my previous measurement eyeballing skills, this was probably a mistake)
3 1/2 cups of chicken broth
1 can of tomato paste
2 teaspoons salt, or to taste (Read:  you are gonna put in TOO MUCH)
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 scant teaspoon sugar (Only someone from Georgia would consider "scant" a valid measurement)
3 or 4 drops Tabasco, or to taste (It's a fine line between a pleasant level of heat and burning your roommate's face off)

Ponderous Steps:  
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Cook bacon slices in a large skillet over medium high heat until crisp (and there's grease everywhere and you've set the smoke alarm off 3 times).
3. Remove bacon, and drain on paper towels, reserving 2 tbsp drippings in skillet. Crumble bacon and set aside.
4. Saute chopped onions and pepper in hot drippings over medium heat for 3 minutes or until tender.
5. Add tomato paste to skillet, stirring until mixture is smooth (or burned).
6. Gradually stir in chicken broth, stirring to loosen particles from bottom of skillet.
7. Stir in sugar, salt and pepper.
8. Bring to a boil; reduce heat, and simmer, stirring occasionally, 10 minutes (the longest 10 minutes of your life. Simmering is such a fine line).
9. Stir in rice and bring to a boil.
10. Stir in bacon pieces (the BEST PART)
11. Pour mixture into a lightly greased (or alternatively, heavily buttered) baking dish bake for 1 hour or until rice is tender (We both know it won't be an hour. And then you'll spend 30 extra minutes standing by the oven, opening and closing it and poking at the rice trying to estimate whether it's done).


Makes 8 normal people side dish servings but since this is dinner by itself, probably only like 3.