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.
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.
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.
Now I know what I'm going to do with all the fresh peas I saw at the Santa Fe farmer's market this weekend. Clotilde at Chocolate and Zucchini has figured out a brilliant use for all those leftover pods when you're done shelling: Chilled pea pod soup. You saute the empty pods with some onion and garlic, deglaze white wine, toss in the blender and press through a food mill, add some nutmeg and chill. Voila, a cool, silky green soup the color of a summertime lake. How perfect would that be for a simple Sunday lunch, with a chunk of baguette and some good prosciutto?
As a child, I never enjoyed eating peas. I associated them with split pea soup which I almost always found to be a nauseatingly mushy green mess. So, I was pleasantly surprised when I recently tried pea salad with radishes and feta cheese. The peas were vibrant green and had the perfect texture, not too soft or too hard. The peas were bursting with flavor.
Currently, peas are in season. Restaurants all over Manhattan have peas somewhere on the menu. Here are 8 heavenly recipes involving peas:
I love finding quick, easy recipes for pasta (really, is there a more versatile dinner food?). I can imagine that this one it was one of the regular meals for a family over the years. It's called Ham and Pea Pasta, from the Mom's Best Recipes site, and I bet you can substitute chicken or turkey if you don't want the ham. Though I guess you'd have to change the name of it.
I love find cookbooks I can actually use. A lot of cookbooks have recipes that I'll never make, so it's great to find one that has some useful, tasty recipes I can actually tackle.
The About.com Guide To Shortcut Cooking is such a book. It's a good first book for someone who wants something on the basics, and it covers everything from soups, salads, and desserts to pasta, side dishes, and appetizers (they have other guides as well, including Home Cooking and Southern Cooking). The author is Linda Larsen, and the recipe for Bacon Mac and Cheese Soup sounds great, just oozing with smoky cheesiness.
I like to spend my mornings cruising the Maine byways, looking for farms and produce stands to put together a fresh and tasty lunch and dinner. I let the season control what is available and the daily finds are always a surprise.
This morning I came across a few nice tasty treats. Fresh green peas in the pod; firm, sweet, and an intense, summery green. Tiny, new, red potatoes the size of marbles. Sweet, green topped, early summer onions looking like fat golf balls. Farm fresh butter made from cultured sour cream and churned pale yellow and creamy with just a hint of sea salt. Local, double rich cream so thick it wouldn't even need whipping. I picked up a potted rosemary bush a deep, verdant green that I could put just outside my front door. Finally I stopped by a U-Pick strawberry field for some deep red, fat and luscious berries. I had some other items at home that would round out these items into a meal that would be full of summer flavors, filling but not too heavy.
In the summer I find I am just not as hungry as other times of the year unless I spend the day hiking or biking. I tend to eat less and much healthier, although I do like a wee bit of fat in my food to appease my craving for luxuriousness. I love soup and decided on a Fresh Pea, Baby Potato, and Sweet Onion Soup; blended into a smooth puree and with a hint of ginger, rosemary, and garlic. This would be a late lunch / early dinner that would be filling enough to last all evening; with just some fresh strawberries and cream for a dessert later in the evening.
I only like peas in one form: whole. I can't take them smashed or mushed in any way, and I can't even stomach smelling pea soup (though my mom used to love it - I'd usually hide in my room when she made it). I'm always looking for something interesting to do with peas. I've never had them in a salad before, and I certainly have never had them be the salad before.
But the fun Rookie Cookery site has a recipe for Pea Salad. She makes them with frozen peas (just running cool water over them to thaw), mayonnaise, red wine vinegar, mustard, salt, and pepper. Add a couple of chopped green onions, chill for a bit, and you have your lunch. Here's the full recipe. I'm sure it's better than the pic makes it look, and it sounds like the perfect light meal for the summer.
On nights when you don't really feel like cooking, pasta is always an easy fallback. Now that people seem to be less terrified of having a few carbs in their diets, pasta is slowly returning to its position as a pantry staple. It only takes a few minutes to cook and you can make an infinite number of sauces, from 5-minute light tomato sauces to rich, slow-cooked ones. If you have an extra few minutes in your evening, it doesn't take too much more work to turn a regular bowl of pasta into a comforting baked pasta dish, with an oozy topping of cheese than gets browned and ever so slightly crusty on top. Just about any baked pasta dish is a welcome meal on a cold winter day.
Tiz true. That humble little green vegetable, the defenseless legume holds little fear for most (unless it's mushy peas,
which is little more than the devil's snot) but there is a woman in England who has a phobia. A pea phobia.
Louise Arnold, 35, of Bishops Cleeve, near Cheltenham in the UK is so terrified of the small green ones that
seeing them on a plate has made her run from restaurants, and she cannot go near the frozen food aisle when out
shopping. She claims to go green just at the sight of them.
Hypnotherapy and acupuncture will be her fate when she appears on TV as part of her attempts to cure her fear of
peas. The ITV show Scared To Death - Phobia Britain will be shown in the summer and will include a
man who is scared of cobwebs and a woman petrified of canoes. Stop laughing at the back there!
Now I know what I'm going to do with all the fresh peas I saw at the Santa Fe farmer's market this weekend. Clotilde at 
I love finding quick, easy recipes for pasta (really, is there a more versatile dinner food?). I can imagine that this one it was one of the regular meals for a family over the years. It's called 
I love find cookbooks I can actually use. A lot of cookbooks have recipes that I'll never make, so it's great to find one that has some useful, tasty recipes I can actually tackle.
I only like peas in one form: whole. I can't take them smashed or mushed in any way, and I can't even stomach smelling pea soup (though my mom used to love it - I'd usually hide in my room when she made it). I'm always looking for something interesting to do with peas. I've never had them in a salad before, and I certainly have never had them be the salad before.
Tiz true. That humble little green vegetable, the defenseless 
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