This week’s recipe hails from Ghana. This is a West African dish that uses black-eyed peas. It only has a few ingredients that makes a great stew. I started with a recipe from Camellia, which sells dried beans. Not sponsored, BTW. Red-Red is a recipe that stews the beans in a tomato sauce with smoked fish. To make this vegan, I am going to add a smoked fish substitute and keep the recipe mostly the same. What you get is a simple dish with lots of flavor and healthy too. Great way to use some of the dried beans in your cupboard. I am always fascinated with how many cultures around the world treat something so simple and make it into something spectacular. Every culture has it’s own lens on how they look at different ingredients. It’s a great way to step out of your food comfort zone.

One thing I will say is don’t add the whole thing of vegan smoked salmon to the dish. Just add the carrots. I added the carrots and the juice to the stew and it overpowered it. The goal is to have a seafood taste that compliments the dish. A word of warning on that.

Here are the original stats:

Here’s what I changed:

• I replaced the tomato sauce with ketchup to remove the excess tomatoes.
• I replaced the palm oil with a lower quantity of vegetable oil, which is easier to find and lowers the calories.
• I replaced the fish with a vegan smoke salmon recipe.
• I deleted the added salt to reduce the sodium.
• I added brown rice to round out the dish to make it a meal.
• I added red bell pepper to increase the vitamin C.

Here are the final stats:

Here is the final recipe:

Red-Red

Serves 5

• 1 cup dried black-eyed peas
• Water
• 1 cup brown rice
• 1 medium onion
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1/8 teaspoon ground red pepper
• 3 tablespoons ketchup
• 2 red bell peppers, chopped
• 1 recipe of Vegan Smoked Salmon from Simply Vegan Blog

1. Add peas to a large bowl, covering with 3 cups water. Soak overnight.
2. Add peas and soaking water to a large stockpot or Dutch oven. Add an additional 1-cup water to pot. Bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer until peas are tender, about 1 hour.
3. Add rice to 2 cups of water.  Bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer, cover and cook for 45 minutes.
4. Once peas are tender, set stockpot aside.
5. Heat oil in a frying pan over medium heat. Add chopped onion and red bell pepper and cook until the onion is translucent.
6. Add ketchup to frying pan and stir well; add vegan smoked salmon, 1/2 cup of water and stir. Simmer for 2-3 minutes.
7. Pour contents of frying pan into stockpot.
8. Add red pepper and an additional 1/2 – 1 cup water to stockpot. 
9. Serve over rice.