If you live anywhere in the South, you are familiar with black eyed peas.  Not a pea, of course, but a legume, the black eyed pea has deep roots in Southern cooking tradition. 

Probably the most well know dish with black eyed peas is Hoppin’ John. This is a pretty simple dish to make but is so warm and comforting.  Of course, you can tweak the recipe to suit your own taste, but a basic recipe would be this general method as follows:

Rinse and soak about a cup of black eyed peas in cold water over-night .  The next day, take a nice, meaty ham bone, put it in a big soup pot and cover it with cold water.  Bring it to a boil, turn it down and let that ham bone simmer for a couple hours.  Then, pour in your black eyed peas and let them cook slowly until they are just about tender.  Meanwhile, cook about one cup of good, long grain rice.  Take the ham bone out of the pot and trim any of the good ham off the bone.  Add the meat back to the pot and mix in the rice when it’s done. 

This is an easy recipe to play around with.  I also like to add some onion.  Don’t forget to salt and pepper, too.

So, here’s my dilemma.  I’m tired of my plain ol’ Hoppin’ John.  Does anybody have some ideas to jazz it up?  Or, even better, does anyone have some suggestions what I can make with black eyed peas OTHER than Hoppin’ John?  I’m looking forward to your input!