Here’s another classic that has evolved in our house over the years.  Just like biological evolution our recipes evolve in a punctuated equilibrium.  They’ll stay the same for quite some time and then all of a sudden some spark will stimulate a cascade of change.  Who knows what causes it but really, who cares?  Whatever the stimulus, it is certainly fun to see what develops.  This version of blackeyed pea salad came to be in the quick and dirty fashion.  We got home late and were hungry and hot.  Cooking really didn’t sound like much fun but I had committed myself earlier in the day to Pancetted crusted wood duck and I wasn’t going to let it go.  That prep, post to follow, was going to take some effort so what else to have?  A quick look in the fridge revealed some excellent blackeyed peas that Kathy had made the day before, a bottle of artichoke hearts, another of capers that was almost empty, a handful of kalamata olives (most of which I ate as a snack!) and some green onions.  That would work, but I needed a couple more players so a tour of the kitchen yielded a couple cloves of garlic and a small jar of pimentos, oh yeah and some fresh homegrown tomatoes from Froberg’s in Alvin as well as some jalepenos from David Mushal’s garden.   We had been to a new to us Turkish joint and had an outstanding tomato and cucumber salad that used red wine vinegar and so I strayed from our typical seasoned rice wine vinegar base just this time and blended the red wine version with some Philipo Berrio olive oil (we used up all of Mike’s private label, darn it) for our dressing.   In truth, I really have no idea exactly how much of each ingredient I used but here are some approximations.  And, yes the peas were cooked with pork, wild pork to be exact, but all pork was removed prior to the making of this salad!

Texas Black Gold (Black eyed pea salad v7.09)

2 cups cooked blackeyed peas (or any similiar pea)

1/4 cup chopped scallion tops

3 Tbs chopped fresh jalepeno

1 Tbs capers, drained

4 bottled artichoke hearts quartered

1 Tbs minced garlic

1 – 4 oz jar pimentos, drained

4 chopped kalamata olives, chopped

3 Tbs red wine vinegar

1/4 cup olive oil

1/4 tsp dry mustard or curry powder for an emulsifier

salt and pepper

Rinse black eyed peas and remove any pork or other meat.  Whisk the olive oil, dry mustard and vinegar together.  Mix all of the vegetables and and your dressiong.  Chill.  When you’re good to go, slice some outstanding fresh tomatos and top them with the salad.  It’s darn good as soon as it’s made but we finished it off the next day and it was even better.