Creole-style Yellow-Eyed Peas

For good luck in the New Year!

I had a cup of the yellow-eyed peas that I bought from Rancho Gordo remaining, and New Year's Day upon us, so I decided to use those beans for our good luck lunch. I'm also in love with my pressure cooker, so it makes another appearance here!

Ingredients
First Step
little bit of olive oil
1 small red onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 red pepper & 1/2 green pepper, chopped (I took a bag of pepper strips from my mom's fridge when we left there earlier this week)
1 rib celery and leaves, chopped
1 cup dried yellow-eyed peas, picked, rinsed, and soaked overnight (I'm sure that black-eyed peas would work too)
2 1/2 cups water

Second Step
14-15 oz diced tomatoes (and juice)
1 tsp dried oregano
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 scant tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp black pepper

Third Step
1/2 tsp hickory liquid smoke

What to do
Step One
Heat pressure cooker, add bit of olive oil, and saute onion. Add the peppers, celery + leaves, and garlic, and saute some more. Add a bit of water if necessary to keep everything from burning. Add the yellow-eyed peas and water. Cover, and bring to pressure. Cook at pressure for 10 minutes. Let the pressure release.

Step Two
Once the pressure is released, open the pressure cooker and add the ingredients for step two - the spices and tomatoes. Cook for ~20 minutes, until sauce-like.

Step Three
Add the liquid smoke, and cook for a few more minutes.

Serve with brown rice and greens (if you had time to make them, which I didn't). So we enjoyed the beans with brown rice. And Dave added a bit of hot sauce (all the "creole" recipes I saw used hot sauce in the actual cooking, but I did not, so that there was a chance that Jacqui might eat it!

Outcome/Thoughts
Too much hickory smoke for my taste...I will be reducing that if/when I make this dish again.

Dave liked it, as did I. Jacqui tolerated it, which means that she wouldn't eat it by herself, but readily ate it when I helped her. And she drank a lot of milk with it! :)

Here's to the New Year!