Black-eyed Pea and Sausage Soup

A while ago I got a cook book called Make It Fast, Cook It Slow, which is filled with gluten-free slow cooker recipes. This month I tried out the black-eyed pea soup, although I modified it to make it corn-free. I hadn't ever cooked with black-eyed peas before, but the recipe looked easy, so I thought it was worth trying. I'm glad I did, because it turned out great. The sausage is essential for the flavor of the soup, so be sure to get some kind of spicy sausage. I cut the sausage up into small pieces, and it wasn't too hot, even for the girls.

This recipe requires a 6-quart slow cooker, or 5-quart at the smallest. If your slow cooker has a 3 or 4-quart capacity, cut the recipe in half so that the soup doesn't overflow while cooking.

Black-eyed Pea and Sausage Soup
serves 6 to 8 adults

Ingredients:

• 1 lb. dried black-eyed peas, soaked overnight
• 1 large yellow onion
  
• 1 cup diced carrots
• 1 cup diced celery
  
• 12 oz. to 1 lb. of hot Italian pork sausage or Cajun Andouille pork sausage. Michael reacts to chicken sausage, so please buy pork sausage if cooking for us. Look for a sausage that doesn't contain any words that aren't recognizable as foods. Also, don't get low-fat sausage since it usually contains wheat, soy, or corn to replace the fat. I get my Italian pork sausage at BJ's, and I buy Aidells Cajun Style Andouille smoked pork sausage at Shaw's.
  
• 4 cups (1 32-ounce box) of chicken broth. The two kinds that I recommend are Imagine Organic Free Range chicken broth and Kitchen Basics Original chicken stock. Do not get the Imagine Organic chicken cooking stock, which contains "natural flavor" that probably comes from corn.
• 2 tsp. minced garlic
• 1/4 tsp. dried basil
• 1/4 tsp. dried oregano
• 1 tsp. kosher salt or sea salt
• 1/2 tsp. black pepper

Instructions:

The night before you want to make the soup, put the beans in a large bowl filled with water. In the morning, drain and rinse the beans, and place them in the crock pot. Chop the onion, carrots, and celery, and add them to the crock pot. Add the chicken broth, garlic, basil, oregano, salt, and pepper, and stir to combine.

If you are using uncooked sausages, cut them into thin slices and stir them into the mixture in the crock pot. Cover and cook on low for 8 hours, or on high for 6 hours. Before serving, scoop 3 cups of the soup out of the crock pot and pour into a blender. Remove the sausage pieces from the soup you have scooped out, and blend the soup until it is creamy. Pour this blended soup back into the crock pot and stir. The blending of part of the soup gives it a thicker, creamier consistency that we really like.

If you are using pre-cooked sausages, wait until after you have blended up part of the soup, and then add the slices of sausage. Let the sausage pieces heat up in the crock pot for about 30 minutes before serving.