After the flurry of moving and holiday festivities, I decided to take a day off from posting last Thursday. To make it up to you, here’s an amazing double recipe feature. Am I forgiven? Good.

By the time Christmas was all said and done, we were done with food. Our friends hosted us for a farewell brunch and I ate more than my weight in breakfast goodness. Can I please relive it? Festive, fresh-squeezed blood orange mimosas, a cheese plate, oven-roasted sweet potatoes, bananas foster waffles, cinnamon apple chicken sausage, roasted rosemary portobellos, quiche, and waffles. I feel full again just typing all of that. National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation was the only remedy for the food coma but before we got that far, I decided to snap some photos of our spread – it was too pretty to resist!

Now that your mouth is watering, I’ll get down to the real business of this post: GREENS & CORNBREAD. This traditional New Year’s Eve dish has a lot of history attached to it. I’m no southerner, but I can appreciate the culture that went into making these foods significant. During the Civil War, Union soldiers raided southern homes and took most of the edible goods, typically leaving behind greens and other less-appealing things. Southerners had to learn to cook with what they had left in order to survive. Today, greens, cornbread, black-eyed peas, symbolize triumph through hardship and encourage good luck in the new year.

Like I said, I’m not a southerner, but I can appreciate good soul food regardless. And I’m all for good luck. The sweet, buttery cornbread balances out the tangy flavor of the greens. If you want to get the full impact of this combination, you have to sop up the juices from the greens with the cornbread. You’re welcome for that.

It’s delicious on its own, but the cornbread is especially good with a melty pat of butter or a drizzle of honey.