Day 1.


I have never cooked or eaten black eyed peas (well, before today). But, I watch a lot of Food TV and the last few days these little beans have been featured a lot, as a symbol of prosperity in the New Year.


I'm a sucker for both symbolism and prosperity.

After digging through the internet for a while, I discovered that Black Eyed Peas are typically soaked overnight and simmered with a ham hock. The idea of soaking something overnight sounds like entirely too much work, and I'm pretty sure a ham hock is a pig's foot and that is just disgusting. I've seen pigs. I know where their feet have been.


We did have these in the freezer though:




I figured I could do this. I gathered my ingredients:


2 bags of dried black eyed peas, frozen Trader Joe's Chicken and Apple Sausage, a head of garlic and some apple cider vinegar.


After rinsing the beans in warm water, and sorting---which I have never done before---(I assumed it meant picking out the few undesirables).



sorry little guys! you didn't make the cut.

I got my sous chef started on peeling the head of garlic,

while I boiled a kettle of water.


I dumped the beans into the crock, and covered them with just enough boiling water to fully cover the beans. I added the sausage and garlic cloves and turned the slow cooker on high.



I added a tablespoon of the apple cider vinegar for flavoring because we seem to have two large unopened bottles for no good reason and I guessed that the vinegary acid would help soften the beans.

It was 8:07 am so I figured if the different recipes I perused were correct, we should be munching on some soft beany goodness for dinner.


Dude. The slow cooker rocks. Rocks, I tell you!


The whole thing was done in less than 3 1/2 hours. Totally cool.



All in all, I definitely think that I will cook dried beans in the slow cooker again. But I don't think I'll be making black eyed peas any time soon.
Black eyed peas are gross.