According to the internet, the recipe for Hoppin’ John is just ham, onion, black eyed peas, water, salt, pepper, and chili powder.
Shoot, I thought. I’ve got that hambone left over from Christmas. I can do that.
I cannot even begin to tell you how good my house smells right now.
If it tastes even close to that good, I can see why people eat it for New Year’s.
Tiny Cat Pants 
Yep, it’s just soupbeans made with black-eyed peas. We had ours for lunch and will be having our corned beef and cabbage later.
It was shockingly good! And shockingly easy to make. And I felt patriotic eating it, which is a little weird, I guess.
I make my hoppin john like pottage but without the tomatoes. It starts with the browning of ham and polish sausage. Then I add onion, celery, red & green peppers, garlic, and my super secret cajun spice mix (salt, black pepper, freshly ground cayenne, teeny bit of oregano, dash of thyme) Then I add blackeyed peas and mustard or collard greens and let it all cook down in the stock created by slow-cooking the previously mentioned items. If there’s not enough juice I’ll add some vegetable stock and a dash of worster & hot sauce. I cook my hoppin john all night in the slow cooker. New Year’s day smells like heaven. Sometimes I use spinach instead of collards or mustard greens, but if I do I add it much later in the process because the spinach is more delicate and will turn to mush if cooked overnight.
“and my super secret cajun spice mix (salt, black pepper, freshly ground cayenne, teeny bit of oregano, dash of thyme)”
Man I hope you are not responsible for keeping secrets as part of your job :p.
Ha, Jim. You’re probably right. And here I was thinking that he was lying about his super secret spice mix!
Maybe one of those items is a lie. Maybe I use fresh parsley instead of oregano. Maybe I just gave you the short list, keeping the super secrets to myself. Maybe the secret is in knowing what I really mean by dash. Either way, I just had some leftovers, and I pity anyone who isn’t me right now. Mmmmm.
Got a three hole crock pot for Xmas. Just blended the potato leek soup, added carrots and bay leaves to the stock for my curried carrot soup, and dropped a cayenne down in my red beans. I love my three hole crock pot. Where has it been all of my life?