Black-Eyed Pea Gumbo

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 1 medium green bell pepper, chopped
• 5 stalks celery, chopped
• 2 cups vegetable stock
  
• 4 (15 ounce) cans black-eyed peas with liquid
• 2 (10 ounce) cans diced tomatoes and green chiles
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 2 tsp Cajun seasoning
  
• 2 cups prepared rice (meaning 1 cup of uncooked rice that's been cooked)
  

Directions:

1. Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan over medium heat, and cook the onion, pepper, and celery until tender.
2. Pour in the vegetable broth, black-eyed peas with liquid, diced tomatoes and green chiles, garlic, and spices.
3. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low, and simmer 45 minutes, or until ready to serve.
4. Add water before serving if gumbo is too thick.
5. Serve gumbo over the rice. Enjoy!
   

What We Do:
You can cook the rice in the gumbo if you wish (don't add extra water and take it off when ready around the 45 minute mark), but we prefer to cook it separately because the amount of water is just right for having leftovers the next day. That means it is a little soupy on the first day, but we just pour some of the liquid out of the ladle before serving on the first day and can easily re-heat it the next day. We make our own broth with a vegan bouillon cube added to 2 cups of water. We left it on the stove simmering on very low heat all day. We served it with some cornbread muffins and green salad.

Special Diet Considerations:
If you're making this for a strict fast, the veggies can be cooked with a vegetable oil. I assume they could also just be added to the gumbo without sautéing, but haven't tried it.

Our family found this to be just the right amount of spice, but a visiting child considered it too spicy. If you have someone sensitive to spiciness, I'd recommend omitting some of the Cajun seasoning or replacing some of it with plain black pepper and/or replacing some of the tomatoes with chiles with plain diced tomatoes.

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