We Southerners know that the traditional New Year’s spread consists of black-eyed peas and collard greens. Black-eyed peas is said to bring good luck in the new year and collard greens brings money. Well, I decided to change it up a bit. Hopefully, it won’t affect the luck and money coming to me this year.
I had the black-eyed peas, but I didn’t do the collard greens. My coworker told me that it’s hard to find collard greens in the great state of N.C. Of course, I didn’t believe him, until I went to do my shopping at the local Harris Teeter. In all fairness, I like to do my shopping at least a couple of weeks before the actual holiday, so maybe I went too early before they put them out. But, he was right. There was not one collard green stalk in sight. I bought the canned greens but they’re still sitting in my pantry. They’ll probably be there a while.
So, I had the brilliant idea of making stuffed mirlitons in place of greens. I mean, it’s still green right? Anyhoo, out here in N.C. they’re called chayote squash. I didn’t have my mama’s recipe so I found one on the internet.
A couple of differences from what I remember with my mom’s recipe – the recipe called for smoked ham, I think we used pork sausage; it also called for cayenne pepper but it didn’t call for bay leaves (Mom and Pop used to put bay leaves in everything).
It didn’t turn out bad, although it was a little orange and more like masked potatoes than what I’m used to, but they served their purpose. I’ll change it up next time, put my own little flavorings in it.
We’ll just have to see if my variation brings in the money this year.
