Black Eyed Peas

I've gotten to the point where when I see the words 'black eyed peas' I think not of the food, but instead of the music group. As it stands, the last time I ate black eyed peas was about seven years ago (what???) when a friend made it with catfish and cornbread. I got an email last week from one of my favorite places, Dave's Fresh Pasta, that was advertising fresh catfish and I started craving it, along with everything that went with it-black eyed peas, collard greens, cornbread, the whole bit. I bought some on Friday to make for dinner today with a friend of mine.

The catfish got me thinking back to that meal that my friend made, and I just wanted to create it again. Problem was, I'd never made any of that stuff before. So I did what any sane person would do. I looked up the recipes for collard greens and black eyed peas on the internet. I found a crockpot recipe for the black eyed peas that I just had this gut feeling about, and it just sounded great.

This morning I got to chopping and cutting (I make it sound like I broke a sweat in the kitchen. Not so, really. A few tears from the onion, yes, but that was about it. About ten minutes worth of work, tops). I threw everything in the crockpot and turned it on, and I left for the gym.



(Does anyone remember that infomercial that was on a few years ago, by the way, that advertised a machine that you could "set it and forget it!"? That phrase kept jumping in my head the entire time I was putting this in the crock pot. Now it's bothering me to find out where it came from. I suppose I should google it.)

This afternoon, I returned home to find a very good smelling dish in my kitchen that I essentially did nothing for. It looked great, and I was quite excited for what was in store.





And it was awesome. :) It was everything I expected it to be, and the peas were nice and tender. I was so pleased.



Slow Cooker Spicy Black Eyed Peas (recipe obtained from www.allrecipes.com)

Ingredients

* 6 cups water
* 1 cube chicken bouillon
* 1 pound dried black-eyed peas, sorted and rinsed
* 1 onion, diced
* 2 cloves garlic, diced
* 1 red bell pepper, stemmed, seeded, and diced
* 1 jalapeno chile, seeded and minced
* 8 ounces diced ham
* 4 slices bacon, chopped
* 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
* 1 1/2 teaspoons cumin
* salt, to taste
* 1 teaspoon ground black pepper

Directions

1. Pour the water into a slow cooker, add the bouillon cube, and stir to dissolve. Combine the black-eyed peas, onion, garlic, bell pepper, jalapeno pepper, ham, bacon, cayenne pepper, cumin, salt, and pepper; stir to blend. Cover the slow cooker and cook on Low for 6 to 8 hours until the beans are tender.

One of the easiest things I ever did.