We do the cabbage, corned beef, blackeye peas over rice, and cornbread every New Years Day. Other days, we like blackeyed peas with BBQ'd hot links over rice - it's a great combination and a Southern thing.
Our blackeye pea recipe is below; we cook 3 lbs at a time, which yields about eight meals for two when frozen in quart ziplock bags ( 2 cups per quart ziplock ). The recipe below is for 1 lb of dried peas:
1 lb bag of blackeye peas
1 tsp toasted sesame seed oil
1 cup of 1/2 - 1 inch cubed ham
2 tsp salt
2 tsp sugar
1/2 onion (chopped)
1/2 tsp thyme
1/4 tsp white pepper
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp cayenne
1/2 tsp oyster sauce or one chicken bouillon cube crushed
1/2 tsp lemon juice
One small bay leaf
Clean and add dry peas to 6 - 8 quart stockpot.
Cover with water twice the depth of the dry peas
Add salt, sugar, and stir.
Let this soak overnight or until peas have almost doubled in size.
Sautee chopped onions and ham together in a separate pan the next day until onions are transparent and add to pot with remaining ingredients
Cover and cook on a gentle slow boil until peas are soft 1-2 hours.
Stir occasionally, making sure there is enough water to cover peas - don't allow peas to stick to the bottom
Adjust salt and pepper to taste (hot sauce optional)
Remove bay leaf, and serve over rice or in a bowl by themselves - will feed about 4 - 8 people.
Freeze leftovers in quart zip-locks (about 2 cups for two people) and reheat by removing frozen peas from the zip-lock bag and placing them in a covered shallow pan, or pot, on the lowest heat setting possible until steaming.
pj comix says aldi has spiral cut ham on sale today 96c lb