Posts Tagged ‘Peas’

Pea Soup

Saturday, September 11th, 2010 by virginia

CSA peas

One of our CSA shares included a 1/2 lb of peas, which really wasn’t so many peas after we shelled them. I’ve never seen fresh peas before, and was surprised to see how un-uniform they actually are.

Peas in a pod

We split open the pods and scraped out all the little peas into a bowl.

Small pile of shelled peas

To make the soup, we sauteed a little bit of onion (just half a small one, since we only had like 3/4 cup of peas) in some butter until the onion was soft and translucent (but not browned). Then we added the peas and cooked them for about a minute. We added just enough chicken stock to cover the peas by about an inch and brought it up to a boil. Once the stock had boiled down a little, we took it off the heat and carefully pureed the soup with our handy immersion blender. We seasoned with salt and pepper, then added a touch of cream to finish.

Creamy pea soup

Because we had such a small amount of peas to start with, we only got one bowl of soup out of it, but it was rich and creamy and absolutely delicious. We had been inspired by the pea soup we had at Nougatine and I thought that our version stood up pretty well, plus it was super easy to make. I liked it so much that I made another batch using a package of frozen peas, and it tasted just as good. The soup makes an elegant starter to any meal, or can be paired with a simple grilled cheese sandwich for something homey and comforting. This is definitely a recipe that we’ll keep on hand for future use.

CSA Week #5

Wednesday, July 7th, 2010 by virginia

It’s CSA Wednesday again! I ran home during the day to pick up the share because I had a softball game after work, and boy, is it hot out. Unfortunately the hot weather has not been good for the crops, and our share this week was the smallest that we’ve had so far. I’m not too concerned because we still have stuff left from last week, plus Josh is traveling so I haven’t been eating our veggies (otherwise he might get jealous). Our share contents this week included:

Lettuce – 1 head green leaf
Radishes – 4 each
Squash – 1lb
Onions – 4 each
Peas – 1/2 lb
Fava Beans – 1lb each

The peas and the beans will be interesting to cook with, since we don’t eat too much of either, but I’m really interested to taste freshly shelled peas/beans.

Peas, white and red onions, green leaf lettuce, squash, radishes, fava beans

Our fruit share also included less fruit, though we did get a strawberry rhubarb jam, which should be interesting:

Cherries – 1 quart
Jam – 1 pint
Juice – 1 pint

Cherries, strawberry rhubarb jam, blackcurrant apple juice

A new juice this week as well, blackcurrant apple this time. Still sad that it’s the smaller bottle, since the first week was more than double the size. The cherries this week are a different variety from the last two weeks, and hopefully they’ll be a bit sweeter. Still more recipes to come!