Vegan Soul Food Fail

Anna and I made three recipes from Vegan Soul Kitchen this weekend, and sadly, none of them really turned out that well. We did black-eyed pea fritters with a spicy relish, johnny cakes, and some cabbage. I have to admit that I don't have much experience with black eyed peas, so they may just be a flavor I don't care for... but the fritters were honestly kind of nasty. You don't cook the beans at all... just soak them... which seems strange, and is probably the reason the bean flavor was so strong (and nasty). Anna claims to really like black-eyed peas normally, but she wasn't any more fond of the fritters than I was... so I guess I don't know what was going on there, but we weren't fans. The recipe was fine though... everything went together well, but fundamentally it just wasn't a dish I enjoyed. It happens. The "johnny blaze cakes" were ok, but once again, I had never had johnny cakes before so I didn't really have reference point to judge them... basically it tastes a lot like cornbread, but in pancake form. They didn't really strike me as something I'd be anxious to make again... but that is probably a personal taste thing... the recipe seemed fine enough, though based on his directions I guess our batter was thicker than he intended, though it's not really clear why that happened... maybe using soy milk instead of rice milk? Otherwise... the cabbage was fine, but not especially exciting... though it probably ended as the best part of the meal.

So just bad luck with dish selection or do we not have palates suited to soul food? Obviously, we're not off to a great start, but we plan on at least making Terry's Ital veggie stew before giving up... and if that turns out well, we may do more of his Jamaican dishes.