a recipe

A couple of months ago our Angel Food order contained a bag of black-eyed peas.  I had never eaten black-eyed peas, let alone cooked them.  I wasn't entirely sure what I was going to do with them, but I started prowling the Internet looking for recipes. 

I finally decided that I would try black-eyed pea and lentil soup.  I used this recipe as a starting point, but if you know me you know I didn't follow that recipe exactly!  I used the crockpot to cook my soup in, I used homemade chicken stock instead of water and bouillon, and I subbed onion powder for the onion.  I didn't have any diced tomatoes, so I used a jar of my grandmother's home canned tomatoes.  And we topped our soup with cheese.

The soup wasn't too bad, but if I make it again I will definitely make some changes.  It needs more flavor.  I think I'd add more cumin, some fresh garlic, and...bacon.  We really thought bacon would help it.  I'm not sure what it says about us that we take a perfectly healthy recipe of legume soup and want to add bacon--probably nothing good.

I'm considering hoppin' john or Texas caviar to use up the rest of the black-eyed peas.  If you don't know what those are, Google it.  Or, if you're smart do a Swagbucks search. 

I know I haven't posted shopping reports and menus much lately.  I'm going to total up what I've spent the last couple of months and see how I did.  That way I can evaluate how I'm doing, what's working, and what needs to change.  I'm quite certain there will be plenty of things that need to change!  I know I haven't done as well as I would have liked.  But seeing where I am will help me make a plan to where I want to be.