How we spent our New Year's

New Year's Eve we hung around our house a bit and drank champagne, sparkling grape juice, and spiked lemonade I made following a recipe I found on Pinterest.  We played games like UNO, CLUE, and even had a good game of Operation going till the batteries died from me hitting the sides too many times.  HA!

Source

Sparkling Spiked Lemonade

 3 cups Lemonade

2 cups Club Soda

1 Tbsp lemon zest

1 cup rum or vodka

mint sprigs or lemon wedges to garnish

Mix Lemonade, Club Soda, zest and rum or vodka into a pitcher.

Serve in a Tom Collins glass over ice.

Garnish with mint or lemon wedges.

(for a kid-friendly version, omit the alcohol and add in ginger ale, or apple juice)

  

Skylar was happy because he was winning almost every game.  :-)

Brybelly Holdings TMAT-03 UNO Card Game (Google Affiliate Ad)

We counted down the hours, then the minutes, and then the seconds until 2013.  Watching Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve just isn't the same without Dick Clark though.

New Year's Day we sat and ate our black-eyed peas and I made a homemade cinnamon apple crisp.  We shared the crisp with the neighbor girl, Keya, when she came over to say Happy New Year to Skylar and us.  We spent the day taking down the Christmas decorations and lounged around watching the original Mary Poppins, ELF, and National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, to top off the night.

Southern Black-Eyed Peas

• 4 slices bacon (Cooked and cut into bits)
• 1/2 spiral-cut, fully cooked ham
• 1 white onion, chopped
• 1 package dried black-eyed peas (16 ounces)
• 1 tbs. lemon pepper seasoning
• 1 tsp. black pepper
• 1 tsp. sea salt
• 1 tbs. hot sauce (for milder beans omit the hot sauce)
• 1 tbs. chili seasoning
• 1 tbs. season salt

Add everything to a stock pot, except the ham, cooked bacon, and the onion, with 2-3 cups of water and cook for 2 hours.  Top peas with water as the beans soak up the water over the cooking time.  For the last 30 minutes of cooking add the ham and the chopped onion and cook on low.  Serve topped with the cooked bacon bits.

Cinnamon Apple Crisp

8-inch square glass baking dish

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup rolled oats

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup organic butter

3 cups organic apples

1/2 cup organic white sugar

2 tsp. ground cinnamon

Peel the skin from the apples and cut into bite-sized pieces and set aside in a bowl.  Coat an 8-inch glass, baking dish with a good layer of butter and preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix the brown sugar with the oats, and flour in a bowl.  Cut in the butter until blended to make crumbs.  Sprinkle the bottom of the baking dish with half of the crumbs and sprinkle the top of the crumbs with the cinnamon.  Add the apples to the top of the crumbs and sprinkle again with cinnamon and the white sugar and top with the rest of the crumbs.

Bake for 35 minutes until golden on top and the mixture is bubbling.  Cool a bit before serving and top with whipped cream sprinkled with cinnamon on top. 

ENJOY! And I hope your New Year was just as great!

Eco-Tip:  Purchase bleach-free, toilet paper that is made from the highest post-consumer waste content you can find (80% minimum).  For this and other tips on going green visit, The Earth and Me Go Green.