Traditional New Years Dinner

New Year's Eve is a time for celebration and sharing good times with friends and family and a traditional New Year's dinner is a great way to celebrate.

New Luck in the New Year

When planning your New Year's Eve dinner, you might want to keep in mind some foods that are traditionally considered lucky or are intended to bring you luck in the coming year.

Foods that are associated with luck often represent money or prosperity. Green lentils are one of these foods. Since green lentils look like tiny green coins, they symbolize money to many people. Other foods associated with money are greens like kale or collards. Basically, if it's a nice shade of green, it is considered to be a lucky food.

Along the same line, food that is silver, like herring or sardines, are also said to bring wealth.

Pork seems to have two meanings depending upon whom you are asking and where their family came from. In some cases, pork represents prosperity because pigs root forward. In other places, pork is eaten to guarantee good health in the New Year.

These are just a few examples of special foods that can make your traditional New Years dinner more than just dinner, but a chance at a more fortunate New Year.

Lentils for Luck

Lentils make a great starter for any meal. For a sit down meal, lentil soup is a tasty way to serve those little green coins. But for a change, this lentil hummus is a delicious dip. I like to make this with red lentils but use green for New Year's Eve.

Ingredients

• 1¼ cups green lentils
• 2 quarts of water
• ½ cup tahini
• 5 cloves of garlic
• ½ cup of lemon juice
• ½ cup of water
• ½ cup of olive oil
• ½ teaspoon of cumin
• Salt and pepper

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Place the peeled garlic cloves in an oven safe pan.
3. Drizzle with olive oil.
4. Add salt and pepper.
5. Roast the garlic for at least 25 minutes or until it starts to brown.
6. Remove from the oven and let cool.
7. Bring the 2 quarts of water to a boil.
8. Add 2 tablespoons of salt to the water.
9. Add the lentils.
10. Boil the lentils for 15 minutes.
11. Test them and make sure that they are soft.
12. Drain the lentils and rinse with cold water.
13. Transfer to a bowl and let them rest in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.
14. Place the lentils into your food processor and pulse for a minute or two.
15. Then, add the tahini, roasted garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, cumin, and a pinch of salt and pepper.
16. Run the food processor until the ingredients are well combined. The texture of the lentil hummus should be smooth, so you may need to add some of the water or you may not need it all.
17. Taste for salt and pepper.

Traditional New Years Dinner

Other foods that are said to bring luck in the New Year are:

• Bread with a coin baked into it.
• Doughnuts or any round bread.
• Pork and sauerkraut
• Grapes. Twelve grapes, one for each month.
• Kale or collard greens. These green leaves represent money.
• Black-eyed peas. Represents coins or wealth.

In the southern states, eating cornbread is considered lucky because the color represents gold and the sweetness of the cornbread was said to bring sweetness (good luck) in the coming year.

Cornbread Recipe

Cornbread cooks best in a cast iron pan. You can use any 9x9-baking dish that you have on hand, but if you have a 10-inch cast iron pan by all means break it out. When the cornbread batter is placed in the preheated cast iron pan, the bread will develop a crisp crust.

Ingredients

• 1 ½ cups yellow cornmeal
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• ¾ teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 ¾ cups of buttermilk
• ½ stick butter

Instructions

1. Preheat your oven to 425 degrees.
2. If you are using a 10-inch cast iron pan, place it in the oven to preheat.
3. Mix together the cornmeal, sugar, baking soda, and salt.
4. Melt the butter.
5. Let the butter cool.
6. Mix together the buttermilk, eggs, and melted butter.
7. Mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients.
8. Carefully remove the pan from the oven.
9. Pour the batter into the pan and spread it evenly.
10. Place the pan back into the oven and bake for 20 to 25 minutes.
11. Turn the cornbread out onto a rack to let it cool.
12. If you opt to use a baking dish, you do not need to preheat it.