Supposedly it is good luck to eat Black-eyed peas on New Year’s. I am not the superstitious type, but I like black-eyed peas, and because of their supposed luck, they were on sale at the grocery store, so I decided to make some. Our friend Wendy is a very good cook, and she has a nice black-eyed peas recipe on her website, so I decided to try it out. She had made it for me before, so I knew it was good. (Since I am writing, just a bit more about Wendy. Clare (my wife) and I were recently thinking about how much we cook compared to our friends, and we came to the conclusion that the only people we know who cook more than us are the Comisars. It should not come as a surprise that they are pretty good at it. And they are both very willing to accommodate my crazy vegan ways.)
I won’t copy the recipe here, but just tell you what I did with it. I mostly followed the recipe verbatim, except I left out paneer (not vegan), and added celery, because I thought it would be tasty. I cooked the peas in my pressure cooker, since it speeds things up a lot. Unfortunately I did not adjust the water very well, as pressure cooking usually requires less water (because less escapes from the pot). I ended up with too much water, and it was a bit soupy. To overcome this I added a can of tomato paste, which thickened things up a bit. Though a bit soupy, it was quite tasty. Thanks for the recipe Wendy — it was a good meal to start off 2007.