Tuesday: "Snow" peas?? In the middle of June? Take that, Al Gore!

 

 Stir-fry of purple snow peas, carrots, crimini mushroom and tofu, served over rice.

If you have vegetable odds and ends on hand, a stir fry is usually within reach.  We actually bought these beautiful purple snow peas in contemplation of a stir fry, so we picked up some mushrooms as well.

Sunday: Pea is for porgy

 

Pan-fried porgy, served with peas with mint.  

Fresh shelling peas are a refreshing treat at this time of year - they don't need much other than a very brief saute in butter, and here we added some fresh spearmint and a little sugar to play up their sweetness.

Sunday dinner: Brought to you by the color orange

Pan-fried grey flounder with roasted sweet potato and gingered carrot-pea salad.

This time, we dredged the fish fillets in a little flour before pan-frying, and served them with fresh lemon juice. The carrots here were diced very fine - almost like those ridiculous mixed vegetable salads you'd find in a school lunch side dish - and simmered with peas, fresh grated ginger, and a little sugar, giving them a lightly sweet dressing.

Thursday: Indian potato and green pea stew

Simple potato and green pea stew (aloo hari matar foogath)

We got this pleasant recipe from Yamuna Devi's book The Art of Indian Vegetarian Cooking. She says this dish is popular throughout north India, where the consistency can vary from relatively dry - as ours was - to thinner and more stew-like.

Thursday: Peas, love, harmony

Yin (macaroni and cheese) and yang (peas).

Not much new to say about this meal - faithful readers will have seen it a few times before - but for your viewing pleasure, we have resorted to playing with our food.

Saturday dinner: Broccoli rabe with Indian flavors

Indian broccoli rabe with tomato-flavored masoor dal and basmati rice.

This Mahanandi broccoli rabe recipe pairs the bitter greens with potato and peas - a common treatment of vegetables with a bite in Indian cooking. It makes sense: the potato adds starch and moderates the bitterness, and the peas add bursts of sweetness.

For a side dish, we made a little masoor dal. Masoor is a light pink legume when dry, though as it cooks it turns a pleasant warm orange. Because it is shelled it cooks very quickly - as little as fifteen minutes - so it can serve as a convenient quick protein for a vegetable-based meal.

Wednesday: Mid-week masala

Veggie masala with coconut milk and lemongrass, served over basmati rice.

We adapted this recipe from an okra masala in a very crunchy Asian vegan cookbook - okra may be done for the year, since we couldn't find it at the market this week, but we had plenty of broccoli Romanesco left over. We added potato to the recipe, as well, since we had some fingerlings lying around. Back by popular demand, special guest chef Laura (not pictured) assisted with prep.

This is only our second time cooking with lemongrass. It smelled amazingly potent and fresh:



The main flavors in this recipe are the large amount of fresh ginger and lemongrass sauteed at the start, and the can of coconut milk added at the very end, which creates a thick, creamy sauce. We also adapted it a bit by adding some spices we thought would mesh well - a small amount of fenugreek and mustard seed, and a bit of turmeric and cayenne.

Observant readers might note that peas are NOT in fact in season - we confess, we used frozen peas, and in fact we almost always do when peas factor into our cooking. Fresh peas are delightful, but their season is very short, and let's be honest, they're kind of a pain to shell. Frozen peas are one of the few veggies whose quality is quite acceptable. In fact, peas flash-frozen at the right point of ripeness can be just as good as fresh peas that are a bit past their prime.

Dinner party

Last night, we had a few friends over for dinner. (Not pictured: Richard.) In addition to the homemade ginger ale (see previous post), we made macaroni and cheese with a side of peas.



1 out of 1 Josephs agree - macaroni and cheese is delicious. (We used the local cheddar cheese from Hawthorne Valley Farm.)

To round out this very "American" dinner, we made a cherry cobbler with the pie cherries that we bought last week at the greenmarket:



Yum.