Soup

Soup is a staple of our lives. We almost always have a pot of soup in the fridge-it's cheap, it's good, it's healthy and you can eat it for dinner one night with some cornbread or quick bread or yeast bread of some kind and then for lunch for much of the rest of the week.. (My kids and husband love when I don't leave enough time for a hearty bread and have to make a rapid cycle white bread recipe in the bread machine).

Tuesday we went to an end of the year part for my 5 year old daughter's 1 day a week co-op where the hit of the event was this delicious blackeyed pea salsa-sometimes also called Texas Caviar. I thought it would make a great soup and made it last night. It turned out amazingly good- especially for blackeyed peas, which most normally are a food I relegate solely to New Year's dinner as reluctant tradition.

Here are both recipes, the salsa in time for all of the holiday parties, the soup in time for all of the busyness of the holiday season:

Blackeyed Pea Salsa
1 can (15 oz) black eye peas – rinsed and drained
1 can(11 oz) white shoepeg corn
2-3 fresh vine ripe tomatoes diced
½ sweet onion diced
½ bunch of fresh cilantro chopped
½ bottle of Italian salad dressing

Mix the above ingredients in a large bowl. Add salt and pepper to taste. Must marinate for 8 hours or is even better if marinated overnight. Serve with Fritos scoops or Tostitos scoops. **Recipe may be easily doubled for a large appetizer.**Save time by putting the tomatoes, onion, and cilantro in the food processor to chop. They can be done all at the same time for easy prep.



Texas Caviar Soup
(all cans undrained)
2 cans blackeyed peas
2 cans shoepeg corn
2 cans Rotel diced tomatoes w/ cilantro and lime
1 medium sized sweet onion, diced
1 bunch cilantro, chopped
4 cups vegetable stock (1 box of stock)
2 cups water
1/4 cup of rice vinegar
1 package dry Good Seasonings Italian dressing seasonings
2 T olive or canola oil

Heat oil in a large pot, saute diced onion until tender- dump in everything else bring it to a boil cover and simmer for an hour or so. If you use homemade stock, you might also want to add a little salt. The Rotel tomatoes are pretty spicy and so if you don't like spicy food I would use Italian diced tomatoes or fire roasted diced tomatoes. Adjust the vinegar to taste-and if you don't have rice vinegar on hand, you could definitely use either white vinegar or cider vinegar--but rice vinegar adds a natural sweetness to the soup, so if using another kind of vinegar I would also add a couple Tablespoons of sugar, at least.



(And for those who have been asking- I am hoping to have time later today to work on the rest of my story. We've pretty busy with end of the year activities and a little distracted by the water, or rather no water, situation. And still no water--but my husband doesn't work until afternoon today and will have the house to himself most of the day, so we should have a little more info by later today.)