Meat-Free Friday–Cornbread Soup!

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For the start of Lent, we get to enjoy some of my favorite foods!  This week’s meat-free Friday dish was named by my kids.  It’s actually a recipe that I adapted from a Cooking Light recipe (January/February 2013) for Black-Eyed Peas and Cornmeal Dumplings, but we’ve changed it so much that we gave it a new name.  A big hit here at our house – we used it for a recent birthday dinner – and you can leave it with its mellow flavor or jazz it up with a hit of hot sauce.  Variety is the spice of life!

Ingredients
9 or more pieces of Morningstar Farms veggie bacon strips, cooked crispy
1 chopped onion
1 tblsp olive oil
1 tblsp minced garlic
2 cups veggie broth
salt and pepper to taste
4 (15 oz.) cans blackeyed peas, undrained
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup chopped spring onions
1/2 cup yellow cornmeal
1/2 tsp baking soda
4 tblsp chilled butter, cut into small chunks
1 cup buttermilk
hot sauce (optional)

Instructions
1)  Saute onion in a large pot with olive oil, for 2-3 minutes.  Add garlic and saute another minute.  Add veggie broth, blackeyed peas, salt and pepper.  Bring to a boil.  If more liquid is needed to make the blackeyed pea mixture “soupy,” add 1 to 1 1/2 cups water or veggie broth.
2)  In a separate bowl, combine flour, spring onions, cornmeal, baking soda, butter, buttermilk.  Mix well and form into little balls by hand.
3)  Drop the cornmeal balls into the blackeyed pea mixture and allow them to cook thoroughly – at least 10 minutes.
4)  Serve immediately, adding hot sauce if you want a little extra zing!  A great side dish for this meal is kale, sauteed in olive oil with chopped red bell pepper and garlic.