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Black Eyed Peas Photo by Kalyn

Black-eyed peas are a type of legume traditionally eaten for good luck on New Year's Day in many parts of the world. Because they originally came from Africa, they're also often featured in many Kwanzaa menus. I learned last year when I experimented with them for the first time that they're really quite delicious. You can find fresh, dried, frozen, or canned black-eyed peas in most large grocery stores in the U.S. In the southern U.S. they're often paired with collard greens, which are also quite yummy. Here are some black-eyed pea recipes some of my favorite food bloggers have featured so you can start out 2007 with good luck.

Homesick Texan has Black-eyed Peas and Texas Caviar for the new year.

Perfect for Kwanzaa, Field to Feast (one of the few food blogs in Africa) gives us West African Jollof Rice containing black-eyed peas. There's also some interesting information about other traditional New Year's foods in this post.

Annie at Bon Appegeek includes some black-eyed peas in her Bonehead Hambone Soup

Lucky Black-Eyed Pea Salad from A Veggie Venture is sure to bring you good luck.

Black-Eyed Pea Risotto from Fresh Approach Cooking is a delicious-sounding non-traditional use of black-eyed peas.

Simply Recipes has a great sounding White Chili that uses canned black-eyed peas.

Contributing editor Kalyn Denny first tried two traditional southern U.S. foods when she created a recipe for Hopping John Soup which combines Black-eyed Peas and collard greens.