Fiction Diner Recipe: Smoked Sausage and Black-eyed Pea Soup

Get ready to warm up with this dish I found on a recent Pinterest search. You can read the original post here on Aunt Bee’s recipes.

Smoked Sausage and Black-eyed Pea Soup:

This was like heaven on a spoon. Seriously! Now, I’ve come to understand that not everyone appreciates the flavor of black-eyed peas. I can remember kicking against the yearly spoonful my mother insisted we eat on New Year’s Day. But as I’ve grown and my taste buds have changed, I’ve come to enjoy their unique flavor. Paired with smoked sausage and peppers and the black-eyed pea is even more dear.
Needless to say, I rate it 10 stars and look forward to the next pot.

Ingredients:
16 oz bag of dried black-eyed peas
2 lbs smoked sausage, sliced
2 Tbsp bacon drippings or oil
1 onion diced
3-4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 can of rotel, mild or original
1 quart chicken broth
3 cups water

Directions:
Soak peas in cold water overnight. Drain the next day. In a dutch oven or large soup pot, brown smoked sausage in oil over medium high heat for 5 minutes. Add onion and cook for 5 more minutes, Reduce heat to medium and add jalapeno and garlic and cook stirring constantly for 2 minutes. Add soaked peas, rotel with juice, chicken broth and water. Bring to a hard boil. Reduce heat to medium/medium low and cook uncovered, stirring occasionally for 2 hours or until peas are tender. Salt and pepper to taste.

Note: I’m sharing the original recipe which has this soup being cooked on the stove top. I chose to work with my crock pot and tossed everything inside and cooked until the peas were soft.
Since I don’t like onions and I happened to be out of garlic, I exchanged both for onion and garlic powders. The flavor was still wonderful.
The original recipe also had you adding a whole diced jalapeno but since I didn’t use it, I chose not to include it in the ingredients above. But if you enjoy a little extra spice, toss it in!
This goes great with a side of corn bread!

Novel Quote:

“Promises are more easily made. I’m more interested in seeing them kept.” ~Flirtation Walk by Siri Mitchell

Great words to live by!