Crock Pot Vegan Black Eyed Peas

My recipe turned out great!

A month or two ago, I came across various ideas for black eyed peas: the spicy southern kind. Most of the recipes include bacon and/or ham, which sounds good and makes sense, but also sounds like the kind of thing I'd rather avoid putting in a vegetable side dish -- ya know? So I queried the 'net for a vegan version and found this. Her recipe requires only:

• 6 cups dried organic black eye peas (soaked overnight) 
• 12 cups purified or distilled water 
• 2 organic onions (diced) 
• 2 - 3 tablespoons pink Himalayan salt 

And optionally:

• 2 - 3 dried bay leaves 
• diced jalapenos (to taste) 
• black pepper or cayenne pepper (to taste) 
• diced garlic (to taste)

jalapeno ... holla 'pain,' yo

It looked like exactly what I wanted, but it also looked ... really plain. Fine, I understand you want to leave out the ham hock, but jeez, you have to put something in there! Now, I've never made anything like this, and, honestly, I've hardly ever even eaten anything like this, so what the hell do I know, but ... black eyed peas, water, onions, and salt ... that's it?! Jalapenos optional?! Come on, you gotta have at least a little heat in there! So I went commando and decided to invent this one myself. I did want to keep it vegan so her recipe was a great starting point.

I didn't have enough black eyed peas
so I used a medley of other stuff as well!

I had about 2 cups of black eyed peas (and soaked them overnight). I didn't think that was quite enough so I added some lentils and wild rice. This I put in the crock pot with about 2 or 3 cups of vegetable broth, sea salt, hot paprika, and fresh ground black pepper. I let that cook for a bit on high while cutting the other stuff. I diced about 4 to 6 small tomatoes, about 4 to 6 jalapenos, and a small onion.  I added all that to the crock pot. I let it cook for a while, added some more broth, and eventually added some water. I dropped in a few large pinches of freshly grown stevia because it tasted too salty at one point.  Oh, and you know what, in a moment of inspiration, I felt like it needed some fat for flavor so I added a tablespoon or 2 of olive oil. It cooked for maybe 8 hours on high -- I wanted it to get almost mushy. People loved it, and I will definitely make this again. It could have used more onion and some garlic. So...

Ingredients

love this picture!

• 3 cups black eyed peas, soaked overnight (or 2 cups + lentils, etc)
• 2-3 cups vegetable broth
• 1-2 cups water
• 4-8 small tomatoes, diced
• 4-6 jalapeno peppers, diced
• 1 or 2 small onions
• 1 or 2 tablespoons of olive oil
• a few cloves of garlic
• hot paprika
• sea salt
• pepper
• fresh stevia??? (optional)

Directions

1. Soak black eyed peas overnight. 
2. Add peas and 2 cups of broth to crock pot. (Substitute some lentils for the black eyed peas for variety, if desired.) Cook on high while preparing other ingredients.
3. Add diced tomatoes and jalapenos; add oil, onions, garlic, and spices.
4. Continue cooking on high. If necessary, add more broth. Taste along the way, though, and add water instead of broth if flavor is too strong.
5. Cook for 6 hours or more, until desired consistency. It will take a while for the black eyed peas to get mushy.

served with burgers...

...sausages, and fruit salad