Black-Eyed Pea Chili

We love having this chili for New Years.  Diana found this recipe from http://www.americanprofile.com/#num=content-478&id=album-4 a few years ago.  She passed it on to me and since then we've both had several requests for it.  This recipe was submitted to the American Profile site by Pat Tomme.  So, now that I have all the credits taken care of, here is the recipe:

Black-Eyed Pea Chile

Ingredients:

1 pound bulk pork sausage

1 medium onion, chopped

1/2 cup chopped celery

4 (15-ounce) cans black-eyed peas, undrained

1 (14-ounce) can diced unsalted tomatoes, undrained

1 (10-ounce) can diced tomatoes with green chilies, undrained

2 tablespoons chili powder

Instructions:

1. Heat a Dutch oven over medium-high heat.  Add sausage; cook until no longer pink, stirring constantly.  Drain sausage on paper towels; discard all but 1 tablespoon pan drippings.  Add onion and celery to pan; cook until onion is translucent, stirring constantly.

2.  Add black-eyed peas, tomatoes, tomatoes with green chilies, and chili powder.  Stir in sausage.  Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 30 minutes.  Ladle into soup bowls.  Serves 10.

Now, for our changes.  We use venison sausage and pork sausage that my husband has made.  He's a hunter and provides nearly all our meat.  For the tomatoes with green chilies, we use Rotel with habanero peppers.  We use a pound bag of dried peas and prepare them following the directions on the bag.  We usually add more celery, because we get carried away cutting it up!  Then when it's all done, we add hot sauce to our bowls.  Can you tell we like things spicy?!

This is delicious and leftovers are even better!  We serve it with cornbread usually, but this year we had some of Diana's sour dough bread!  Yum!

LaDonna