Christmastide 2008 Night #8....

First I must say GO BEAVS!!

That's right, the Oregon State Beavers won the Sun Bowl this evening...not a terribly exciting game as had been expected, but the 3-0 finish was enough to give the Beavers the win and to keep the PAC-10 Conference undefeated in the 2008-09 Bowl Season.

After getting home and seeing that OSU had won the game I went to work prepping and cooking up some Hop 'n' John...this is a traditional meal made on New Year's, it is supposed to bring good luck in the New Year. And as I could definitely use some good luck to come my way I said what the hey and gave it a shot. There are many recipes out there for this dish and according to my sister who has the new Rachel Ray Cookbook there is even a 30 minute easy version of Hop 'n' John. I, however, chose to go old school and make mine from scratch. I soaked some black eyed peas overnight...then tonight, I boiled up some ham hocks until I could remove all the meat from the hocks so that I could brown them up with some bacon that I had sliced up into bite sized pieces...while this was all going on I prepared some white rice and when it was all ready to go I mixed all the ingredients up. Added some salt and pepper to taste and threw in some pepper ketchup (that's the hop, part)...as I ended up taking this dish to some friends house later in the night I chose not to add too much pepper ketchup (that's hot sauce for all those still wondering) and took the peppper ketchup with me so everyone could add the hop to their own liking...it turned out really well and even if it doesn't bring good luck it sure tasted good! Here's the finished product:


After finishing the Hop 'n' John, I watched tonight's double feature of A Muppet Family Christmas and National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. I had a wonderful evening of singing along to all the Christmas carols with all of Jim Henson's Muppets and then enjoyed the misadventures of the Griswold family.

When the movies were over I then went over to a friends house to watch the ball drop in New York City, live on tv...I must admit tonight was the first time I had ever watched the ball drop live on tv, growing up out West you only ever saw the tape delayed version so it was pretty cool to say I saw the ball drop live. I made sure to call a few people back home to let them know I got to see something they still have to wait hours yet to see!

I hope that everyone has a bit of luck of their own in this New Year and that we all will find some time to meet up for some quality time...I miss and love you all!