"peas" news and stories

They come loose or in bags, but no matter how you buy them, English shelling peas are a summer treat worth bringing into your kitchen.

Have sweet peas in the freezer? Here are four great ways to make the most of them.

Just-shelled peas. Photo: periwinklejane, Flickr

Looking at these just-shelled, fresh-from-the-garden peas, we are inclined to write their life story -- whether accurate or not.

It all started, we suppose, on a crisp spring night, when a hungry grower put down some pea plants after the last major frost of the season. Forgetting about the peas, she let Mother Nature do her thing until one morning the pea planter awoke to find perfectly plump pods ready to be plucked from their vines. She spent the morning and afternoon picking and shelling these sweet green peas, eating many along the way, before delivering them -- in ridiculously adorable baskets, no less -- to her pea-loving friends. (This is where we insert ourselves into the story.) Before making their way into our very happy bellies, these peas were tossed with penne, extra virgin olive oil, salt, pepper and freshly grated Parmesan cheese.

The end.

[Via Flickr]

Photo: Zen Can Cook

Smoked salmon is rarely seen out of the company of a bagel and thick smear of cream cheese, particularly at the breakfast table. But this photo, taken by zenchef of Zen Can Cook, presents an incredibly tempting alternative. What you're looking at is Scottish smoked salmon, perched on top of a pea pancake and crowned with a bit of crème fraiche and Meyer lemon. Granted, it takes a little more preparation than slicing open a bagel, but colors and flavor combinations like these are well worth the effort.

[Via Zen Can Cook]

In this weekly series, home cook Bruce Watson works his way through a decades-old family cookbook, adapting the best recipes exclusively for Slashfood.

When I was a kid, pea season was a mixed blessing. On the bright side, it meant that we would get fresh sweet peas on the table. Whether from our family garden or from a local farmers' market, the just-harvested peas were invariably sweet, crunchy and delicious. On the other hand, our regular servings of fresh peas translated into hours spent on the porch shelling the bright green pods. Even under the best circumstances, it was dull, tedious work.

My mother's pea salad recipe, which combines the sweetness of peas with the light flavor of dill, tended to overshadow the peas with a heavy helping of sour cream, mayonnaise and scallions. My modified version, included below, lets the flavor of the peas shine through, but retains the original's cool summer flavors.

Get the recipe for dilled pea salad after the jump.