Recipe Experiment-Slow Cooked Black Eyed Peas

In keeping with my slow cooker theme, I tried my hand at making black eyed peas.  I've never made them from scratch, but the recipe sounded interesting and I wanted a hearty fiber rich dish.

From Skinnytaste.com I found Slow Cooked Black Eyed Peas.  I adjusted the ingredients for what I had on hand.  I did not have a ham bone so I just used some left over chicken broth.  In reading the comments on skinnytaste someone wrote that they used rotel tomato with chile and I thought that was a good idea.  So my adjustments were:

• 8 oz smoked lean ham steak, diced (or a ham bone would be perfect)-->I used chicken broth and water
• 1 pound dried black-eyed peas, rinsed and soaked overnight
• 2 bay leaves-->oops didn't have any
• 1 tsp olive oil-->used to saute the onion/red pepper which I did not do
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 2 cloves garlic, diced-->I used diced in a jar
• 1 red bell pepper, stemmed, seeded, and diced
• 1 jalapeno chile, seeded and minced  -->used a small can of rotel tomato with chile
• 1 tomato, diced
• 1/2 tsp chili powder (I used chipotle)
• 1-1/2 teaspoons cumin-->omitted (not sure I like this spice)
• salt to taste
• 1 tsp ground black pepper

 The recipe calls for sauteing the onion and red pepper, but I just added it to the peas and let it cook for another hour or so.  Pic below