Spicy Sweet Potato and Black Eyed Pea Soup!

This is an excellent soup for cold weather. It's filling, spicy, and colorful. Also vegan! Hooray!

It might sound weird, but once you try you'll realize sweet potatoes and black eyed peas were meant to be together!

It takes about an hour to make and will serve several people. :)

Step 1: Ingredients!

• one sweet potato
• one stalk of celery 
• 2-3 cloves of garlic
• roasted red pepper (equivalent to about half of a bell pepper)
• one heaping cup of dried black eye peas
• one onion
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1/2 tsp coriander
• 1/8 to 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
• generous pinch of dried red pepper
• a tbsp or there-abouts of tomato paste
• 1 bay leaf
• water to cover (normally about 4 cups)
• salt and pepper to taste!
• chopped cilantro or parsley, about 2 tbsp to stir in at end. (optional)

Step 2: Prep the Veggies.

Cut the celery in half lengthwise and slice thinly.
Dice the onion.
Squeeze the excess water or oil out of the roasted red pepper and chop it up.
Mince the garlic. 
Cube the sweet potato into 1/2 inch pieces. 

At this point, you can also rinse and pick your beans. :)

Step 3: Cooking, Part 1.

Film the bottom of a pot with olive oil and set the heat to medium high. Let this heat until the oil shimmers.

Then, drop in your onion and celery and cook them, stirring frequently, until they become soft and slightly translucent. 

Now drop in your spices and minced garlic and stir everything well until it becomes very fragrant - then you can add the tomato paste!

Finally, drop in your sweet potato, roasted red pepper and black eyed peas, stir, and then cover with water. (Just do it enough to cover. It usually takes about 4 cups for me!)

Step 4: Cooking, Part 2.

Bring this to a boil, and then cover and reduce to a simmer. 

You'll let this simmer for 45 minutes, or until the black eyed peas get soft. 

Make sure to stir it frequently - but not too rough - you don't want to smash the sweet potatoes to bits! And when you stir, make sure to check the water level. Add a little more if you needs to. :D

Once your black eyed peas have softened, turn off the heat and stir in some parsley or cilantro.

Step 5: Serve!

Goes great with cornbread.

Then again, everything goes great with cornbread. :D

Comments

[kuato]

I tried it, and I thought it was pretty good... but then I added some Tabasco... wow, delish!! And I'm normally not a fan of vegan, but I don't think I would even add meat to this receipe, it's pretty hearty.

[jessyratfink]

I almost always add sriracha to what I'm eating... so I can recommend sriracha in this too. :D

Everything's better with a little heat!

[kuato]

Nice! I didn't even think of that, but the vinegar seems to go well with the sweet potatoes. I'm going to add Sriracha to tomorrow’s soup to see which I like better (I made waaaay too much --not necessarily a bad thing).

[MariahWeezy123]

Thats Looks delicious

[drewSaysGoVeg]

I love seeing vegan recipes on here!

[jessyratfink]

Nope, I didn't delete anything. :) Though looking back at your comments, I think you might be encountering a bug! I can still see all of your replies, even the first comment you made. Maybe clear your cache and report it?

[jessyratfink]

Tossed!

I love the crispy bits that burned food provides in some cases, but it's not quite edible. :P

[bustedit]

forget roasting a pepper, how do you give a pea a black eye?!?

looks so yummy.

[jessyratfink]

Well, if you've got a gas stove, you can roast the pepper over the flames. I normally hold it with tongs, and you just let it go until it's charred all over. Then you let it cool and peel off as much of the charred skin as you can. :)

If you don't have gas, you can always use your broiler in the same way!

Last time I made this, I roasted a fresh pepper, and I have to say I like that a little more. The stuff in cans is so mushy. :P