Showing posts with label black-eyed peas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label black-eyed peas. Show all posts

Rainy Day Black-Eyed Pea Cooking Spree!

Posted by : Tyler on 12:21 PM | 3 Comments

The plan this morning was to go to yoga class and then on a long run. I am absolutely terrible at yoga as I have no flexibility or balancing skills, but I enjoy it every once in a while for a challenge, and I got a mat for Christmas! I was really looking forward to running afterward, however, 40 degrees + rain = no run :( So after a yoga classes full of chaturangas (ouch) and warrior poses (my fav), I had a bowl of Kashi Go Lean with cinnamon sprinkled on top and TJ's gingerbread coffee with skim milk (yum!). And then I found this:

MASSIVE bowl of left-over black-eyed peas!!!!!

I decide to take on a personal cooking challenge to use all the black-eyed peas! Here are my cooking experiments:

1. Black-Eyed Pea Chocolate Cake
Stumbled across this blog post from Bittersweet and got inspired! (Btw, if you haven't checked out this girl's blog before, it is awesome. She does lots of vegan cooking and has amazing food photography. I just found it today and will definitely be reading it again!) 

We had my favorite kind of chocolate chips: Ghirardelli 60% bittersweet chips!! My sister and I were snacking on them last night so we just barely had 1 1/2 cups :) Thank goodness! Microwaved the chips in 30 second increments until melted, stirring after each increment.

Melted Ghirardelli chocolate chips. Mmmmm....

The original recipe calls for 4 eggs (Bittersweet's recipe was adapted to use tofu instead), but I opened our egg carton and discovered we only had 3 eggs (and we don't have tofu). Crap. Google searched "egg substitute baking" and looked through pantry and refrigerator.... I found I had several options: 1/4 cup of applesauce, banana, pumpkin, or yogurt. I chose to mash up about 1/4 cup of banana. 

Bittersweet added coffee powder to hers, which I'm sure was delicious, but I decided to use cinnamon! Chocolate and cinnamon is always a fabulous combination. (Actually I think cinnamon added to pretty much anything is tasty...)

So here are the ingredients I ended up using:
  • 1 1/2 cup Ghirardelli bittersweet chocolate chips
  • 2 cups black-eyed peas
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • 3 eggs
  • 1/4 cup mashed banana
  • about 2 tsp cinnamon (didn't measure)
So easy. Just melt the chips and blend it all in a food processor! Baked for 40 minutes at 350 in a 9 inch cake pan. It had a really nice flavor, and the texture was perfect! So moist and wonderful! I'm sure it would be super easy to make completely vegan by using carob chips in place of chocolate and tofu, fruit based egg substitute, or vegan "yogurt" in place of the eggs. Great reviews from the whole family...we are all chocolate lovers :)

Slice of cake with whipped cream and more cinnamon!

2. Garlicky Black-Eyed Pea Hummus
Hummus is one of my favorite foods! It is usually made with chickpeas (aka garbanzo beans), but black-eyed peas seemed like an acceptable substitute. And we happened to have tahini paste (essential hummus ingredient!), so I put this in a food processor: 
  • 2 cups black-eyed peas
  • 1/4 cup tahini paste
  • 2 tablespoons EVOO
  • 2 tablespoons lemon juice
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • Salt and pepper
I blended all this together, adding a few tablespoons of water to get it to the consistency I wanted (fresh squeezed lemon juice probably would have been better, but I didn't have any more lemons). 

My top two hummus dippers = baby carrots and toasted whole wheat pita bread. But give me any raw veggie, cracker, chip... or just a spoon, and I will eat lots of hummus!

3. Black-Eyed Pea Veggie Burgers
Loved these!!! After looking a several bean burger recipes, I came up with this recipe (mainly inspired by this recipe):
  • 1 1/2 cups black-eyed peas
  • 1/2 cup chopped onions
  • 1 clove garlic, minced
  • 1/4 tsp. cumin
  • 1/4 tsp. chili powder
  • 1/4 tsp McCormick's Cajun Seasoning
  • fresh cilantro
  • juice from 1/2 a lime
First I chopped up about half of a large onion (left over from last night) and a clove of garlic and sauteed them with olive oil.  I would guess it came out to about 1/2 cup. 
Then I added the seasonings and put all ingredients in a food processor. 


Then I shaped into burgers and cooked them on the stove with a little olive oil until they browned a bit on each side. 

Cooked these for dinner and served with oven-roasted red potatoes, cherry tomatoes, and peppers. (We also put some Fresh Market Plum Tomato Mild Salsa on the burgers.) This is my favorite way to cook veggies: just coat in a little olive oil and salt and put in the oven! I like to put aluminum foil over the pan for easy clean-up.

A healthy and delicious dinner.

Ok, so after all that cooking I actually barely made a dent in the gigantic bowl of black-eyed peas, but I still made some wonderful foods today! This challenge is officially to be continued. Any suggestions on how to use the rest? Since the cake turned out so well, I'm thinking of trying to make some muffins with them tomorrow morning. I also have some salad ideas in mind... Stay tuned!

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Is it 2009 already?

Posted by : Tyler on 5:31 PM | 3 Comments

My friends and I had been talking about going out in Atlanta for this New Years since this is the first New Years that we are all finally 21! But we ended up deciding to celebrate in Athens where we know more people and have an apartment downtown :) 


New Years Party Supplies:

1. Chocolate Covered Pretzels
One of my roommates has been making these regularly ever since I bought a single 75 cent chocolate covered pretzel to-go at a local coffee house as a painfully obvious excuse to flirt with the cute barista.  Now whenever she thinks of me trying to flirt, she craves chocolate covered pretzels, haha. The original plan was to make half with dark chocolate and toffee pieces and half with white chocolate and sprinkles, however, the dark chocolate was not sticking to the pretzels and the toffee pieces were too heavy to stay on the pretzels. Solution: Dip in white chocolate and drizzle with dark chocolate! 


2. Publix spinach artichoke dip. For some reason I feel guilty admitting that I bought this instead of making it myself. But this dip from the Publix deli is really really good!  Awesome when heated up with pita chips :)

3. Champagne Punch (adapted from allrecipes.com) This was a hit!
  • 1 can frozen limeade concentrate
  • 1 can frozen pink lemonade concentrate
  • 1 can frozen raspberry concentrate
  • 1 750 mL bottle Yellow Tail Chardonnay
  • 2 bottles Andre Extra Dry ($5 a bottle. we are so classy...)
  • 2 liters seltzer water
  • Ice
We meant to put frozen berries in this for garnish, but we forgot :(
Although I am a food snob, I don't have the palette yet to be a wine snob, hence the Yellow Tail and Andre. If you have the budget to buy nicer stuff, go for it, but this was actually very tasty!

4. Sparklers!!!

My favorite restaurant (Big City Bread Cafe) in Athens was having a special New Year's brunch today! I got a cup of 1000 Faces Coffee (a fair trade brand) and apple stuffed french toast. Roomie got eggs benedict on their famous biscuits with smoked salmon and spinach. Yum!

A Very Southern Dinner
Went back home (parent's house...unsure of whether home is where I grew up or where I pay rent) and Mom made buttermilk corn bread and Ham and Black-Eyed Pea Soup with Collard Greens. This is probably not a recipe that would have caught my eye, but it was delicious!
 

Ham, garlic, and onions.

Big pot of black-eyed peas! (The blurriness is steam.)

Voila! After cooking everything with chicken broth and lots of collards.

Southern tradition says that black-eyed peas on New Year's Day are supposed to bring luck and prosperity for the new year. This is exactly what I need when I graduate! Hopefully this meal will help...I had 2 bowls :)

Also, I really do enjoy collard greens even though I never think to cook with them. When cooked they kind of taste like spinach but crunchier. And they are super healthy: lots of vitamin K, vitamin A, vitamin C, folate, calcium, and fiber. Black-eyed peas have a lot of fiber, too, which makes this light soup very satisfying and filling!

2008 was a great year and I'm sort of sad to see it go. I accomplished a lot this past year including running 2 half-marathons, completing my first 3 triathlons, passing Biochemistry (B+), and starting this blog! I've been scared of 2009 for the past four years because it is the year I must leave college and be a real adult. Ahhh! Whatever happens in the next year, it will be an adventure at the very least.

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