Sauerkraut for luck

Dear Friends,
Happy New Year!
When I was in Miami last week a woman from Peru said her people wear special colors of underwear for good luck on New Year's Day: red for love and yellow for wealth. She said she will wear both colors.

In our house growing up we ate sauerkraut on Jan. 1 for good luck, and I have always made it as an adult too. It's simmering now. Here's the recipe, simplified from my old Perla Meyers' From Market to Kitchen Cookbook:

2 T. butter
1 T. vegetable oil (I used olive oil)
1 C. finely minced onions (I chopped up one big onion -- more than a cup -- into kind of big pieces.)
3 T. brown sugar
1 C chopped tomatoes
2 pounds sauerkraut (I used less -- a package from the food cooperative here.)
salt (I haven't used any yet -- the sauerkraut is salty enough.)
5 peppercorns
2 tsp. caraway seeds
thyme
bay leaf or two
2 C. chicken stock

Heat the butter and oil in a heavy casserole. Add the onions and cook over low heat until light brown. Add the brown sugar and cook for a minute or two.  Alternatively, skip the sugar, or stir it in later if you find the sauerkraut too sour.
Add all the rest of the ingredients. Boil, reduce heat to simmer and cook for two hours (I put the lid on). Stir every 20 minutes.

My recipe goes on to tell how to cook ducks to go with this, but I"m going to brown a sausage and boil a potato and serve it all with mustard.

Mom would fry leftover sauerkraut with mashed potato patties the next day and it was delicious.

Good luck!
Love,
k