Photography Callie England

I’d be totally lying if I said I weren’t a sucker for anything colored pink or purple. Which is why, when I came across these purple hull peas at the market, I couldn’t resist the splurge! The price was high, and I had no clue what I was going to do with them, but that only intrigued me more.

When I got home, I anxiously cracked open a pod, and to my surprise found a bean similar to that of the black eyed pea. ‘Crap’ I thought, I have to cook these! Not because I don’t sometimes eat cooked food, but because my dehydrator’s home is on top of my stove  – Basically, cooking (with heat) to me, is so much more work than it’s counterpart. Funny what we get used to…

Any who, I sat in front of my computer, watched two hours of hulu, and shelled all of the beans. Whew, what a job! I knew after all that work, that this would definitely be a one time only purchase!

So after that beautiful mess, I then sat perplexed wondering just what the heck I was going to do with these. After a few thousand google searches, I realized that a traditional pairing includes purple hull peas and cornbread. However, I didn’t want to just serve plain peas, so I channeled a back-in-the-day recipe and decided to serve the cornbread with a modified Texas caviar.

But first, I had to cook the peas – which actually, ended up being a lot quicker than I had imagined. I guess I was thinking it would be like cooking those bagged beans at the store – insert – takes forever! Instead, I had perfectly cooked peas in well under an hour… Maybe I’ll make these more often. That is, if I can sweet talk someone into hulling them for me… Any takers?

Instructions For Cornbread:
1. Process all ingredients in a food processor until smooth.
2. On a non-stick dehydrator sheet, spread mixture evenly.
3. Dehydrate at 105 degrees for about 8 hours, flipping halfway.

Instructions For Purple Pea Caviar:
1. Mix all ingredients together, and let sit for an hour or two to marinate.

And that’s it – food I actually had to work for.