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Give peas a chance!

I'm planting mine – the ones  pictured above – this very weekend. Actually they're Chinese-style Snow Peas.  My wife, the L&T Cheryl DeGroot refuses to eat the little round ones. 

Which is too bad because besides being delicious and versatile peas are really good for you.

Frozen peas make a cooling summertime snack

Okay, it's not all that hot yet but just wait till those horrid dog days of summer when the temperature rockets to a thermometer-busting 70 or even 75 degrees.  That's when you can pop a few frozen peas straight from the bag and into your mouth.  My Food for thought pard Nancy Leson had never tried it but trust me, they're great that way.

Of course no discussion of peas would be complete without mention of pea soup.  Nancy used an Emeril Lagasse recipebut made a few changes.   Where Emeril says to discard the water the ham hock is simmered in, Nancy quite sensibly adds it to the soup.   And rather than soak the dried split peas overnight, she can have them ready to go in a mere hour.  Click "Listen" to find out how.

I'll be using more than just the pods when I harvest my Chinese snow peas.  The vine shoots are great, too.  Here's a vine shoot recipe.

"I eat my peas with honey;

I've done it all my life.

 It makes the peas taste funny,

but it keeps them on my knife."

– Anonymous

 

Dick Stein joined KNKX in January 1992. He retired in 2020 after three decades on air. During his storied radio career, he hosted the morning jazz show, co-hosted and produced "Food for Thought" with Nancy Leson and wrote and directed the Jimmy Jazzoid live radio musical comedies and 100 episodes of Jazz Kitchen.