Now that it's just me I rarely cook. I try to, the money you save from bulk meal planning is remarkable. A real game changer. That said, I can barely get motivated enough to do it. If it's a good week I might fry up some sausages or some porkchops one of the days. Too stingy to eat out so I live off of microwavable meals. I'm sure some of you can relate.

Anyway, Hoppin' John is a great, cheap, and relatively easy meal that was beloved in the US South.

What I used:

Black eye peas, 2 cups dry

A pack of bacon. I splurged on some name brand stuff.

Knew I wasn't gonna feel like chopping a bunch of vegetables so I bought some store cut mix. Celery and onions. It also had diced carrots with it. Whatever, I used them

I also bought some sweet peppers on a whim.

I even have bay leaf but forgot to put it in. My clove of garlic was discovered dead at the scene, so that sucked.

Parboiled rice, 2 cup. (There's actually quite the history around Carolina Rice). Thus was just some white, long grain.

Here's what you do:

Soak peas 2 hours or overnight.

Cook the bacon until it starts to crisp. I used some spatulas and tore it up in the pan when it was about half done. Set it aside.

Used a tablespoon or three of the grease. Saute the veggies until the onions caramelize. I had the carrots cooking for a while first.

Rinse peas, put in pot with veggies, two inches of water over the peas. Salt. Bring to boil and then simmer until peas are done (30 min to 1 1/2 hrs.) Mine was 45 minutes). Toss in bacon and put it on low while you:

Make rice.

You're done. Pour equal amount of one over the other. Enjoy.