58. Sugar Snap Peas with Pine Nuts and Garlic

Date Cooked: January 25, 2009
Page: 173
Rating: B+

My memories of peas for the most part include horrible nightmares of brown mushy canned peas. I don’t recall eating them at home much but my grandmother always served them and I really loathed them. Although it has been many years since I was exposed to the unpleasant smell of those little gross peas every time I think peas, I think canned. Then slowly the vibrant green of frozen peas works its way in. The only other type of pea I have in memory are snow peas. In fact I always thought that sugar snap peas and snow peas were the same. Never gave it much thought… until I decided to buy sugar snap peas. Turns out they are different. In fact sugar snap peas look like beans. So on this day I had learned that peas come in one more form for my memory to store. And after this recipe I am really hoping that when I think peas I think sugar snap.

This was a rather straight forward recipe. My wife tediously snipped the tips of the peas and then they were quickly blanched. I am not a good judge of timing (as I have bemoaned often in the past) so the peas might have been cooked a tad too long. They received a nice dunk in an ice water bath before being spread out on some paper towel to dry.

Since I was preparing a full diner that night from the book, they were able to sit for a bit until they were ready to be finished off. Into a skillet of oil with toasted pine nuts and garlic they were sautéed until warmed through and then plated to be served.

Rating: B+. These were very good and accompanied the meal well. I will make these again. I’ve also determined that I like pine nuts. Something up until this point I don’t really recall eating before.

16. Buttered Peas

Date Cooked: September 9th, 2008
Page: 172
Rating: C

Okay everyone. Hold on for another exciting recipe! This one combines the great flavors of peas with salt and butter. Exciting wouldn’t you say!

This is a pretty weak recipe entry from the book but it was more of a technique learning experience. I’m not sure if this is a technique that should be used. Basically you sauté frozen peas in a pan with butter and serve warm. Yes, the book recommends frozen. I don’t want to say it was a horrible failure but man I need to stop learning from mistakes. I need to start learning from success!

So this is the failure part. I was boiling water for pasta and decided to use the same burner. I forgot to turn the burner down so when the peas hit the melted butter they exploded like firecrackers. I had pea shrapnel all over the stove. I quickly removed them from the heat and turned the burner down but the damage had been done, little crispy peas. Now I won’t lay all the blame on the stovetop temperature. The fact that these peas sat in my freezer for a long time certainly didn’t help. They had developed a woody texture that no amount of butter was going to soften.

Anyway, I’ll go back to steaming my peas or boiling them in a little water.

Rating: C, simply because it would have been easier to steam them and they would probably have tasted better. Maybe I’ll try this method again with a newer bag of peas and a little more attention to detail.

On a completely non-food related topic, mother nature Sunday night decided to deal a vicious blow to my minivan by pushing a 40 year old maple onto it. At least she was nice enough to spare my house and the car that should have been crushed. I might not be attempting as many failures in the coming weeks.