Monday, July 2, 2018

3 Refreshing Pea Recipes for Summer

It is very hot outside and I'm feeling particularly lazy. Yet I'm hungry. It's too hot to eat a full, heavy meal but I'm really hungry. After seeing my gardening friends posting their magazine quality photos of their pea harvests, I'm having a pea craving. I think the following three recipes are the three best pea recipes. 


7 Layer Salad


I love 7 layer salads. I tend to make them only occasionally in the summer and have not yet made one this year. There are a variety of 7 layer salad recipes to be found, but I always use the recipe that uses peas. I love the flavor that peas add to this salad.

While looking for that recipe, so I could give you the amounts of the ingredients, I found this version of a Layered Salad by The Pioneer Woman. I like her version even better! She adds spinach and tomatoes - in addition to the 7 ingredients I add: lettuce, eggs, peas, green onions, bacon, cheese, and mayo. 


Layered Salad by The Pioneer Woman

Her salad is like a beautiful BLT in a bowl, with the added oomph of the peas and other ingredients. What a fresh and beautiful layer salad. YUM! My mouth is watering. 

I need to stop at the farmer's stand and buy some fresh, ripe 'maters - instead of those cardboard flavored tomatoes at the grocery. 


Pea Soup



Pea Soup recipe by Eating Well
Pea soup!  How easy and flavorful can you get?  This Pea Soup recipe by Eating Well is right up my alley - only 12 ingredients; all of which I have in my kitchen right now with the exception of fresh thyme or parsley. The recipe claims that it only takes 35 minutes until ready to eat.

In this heat, I believe I would serve this chilled (as many pea soup recipes are) but I can also imagine this would be a great soup to prepare and serve either warm or chilled - depending on my mood that day.


Smashed Peas with Mint Butter


All my life, I've smashed my peas in my potatoes and made smashed peas. Mom served them separately but they ended up mashed together on my plate. Who knew that would become "a thing" ?!  Well, it is. 

Including the water, this Smashed Pea with Mint Butter recipe by Genius Kitchen has a whopping 7 ingredients! Again, everything I have in my kitchen already with the exception of fresh parsley. No, I don't intentionally boycott parsley, I apparently just don't really use it.

The idea of adding my own fresh mint (from the balcony) to my smashed peas excites me.


Smashed Peas with Mint Butter by Genius Kitchen


*  *  *  *  *  

Whether you prefer using fresh peas for a garden to table cooking or frozen peas (because frozen peas keep their flavor for a garden-fresh taste even when the gardens aren't producing) I hope you find one of these recipes to be useful. 

Summer is a wonderful time for trying new recipes and re-visiting family favorites because the seasonal vegetables are at their freshest and most flavorful. I always feel more adventurous in the kitchen when gardens are in full swing.

Related Link:

Do you think you hate eating peas? For me it was beets. I despised beets for decades. But I changed my mind recently. Here is my article about how I came to love (and crave) beets. Even if you think you don't want to eat peas, one of the above recipes may change your mind.

Looking for vegetable recipes other than peas?  I've included some recommended cookbooks below. And yes, I've included a kid-friendly cookbook (being released in October) because, frankly, kid-friendly recipes are more my style.


Photo Credit: Intro photo courtesy of Pixaby - CC0 creative commons


Note: The author may receive a commission from purchases made using links found in this article. “As an Amazon Associate, Ebay (EPN) and/or Esty (Awin) Affiliate, I (we) earn from qualifying purchases.”


5 comments:

  1. Love those recipes. Mom and I often watch Pioneer Woman and her salad sounds so good. Pea Soup I love! I haven't had it in ages. Used to eat that all the time. I honestly think I'm craving it now after reading this page. Funny what you said about Beets - When I was a young girl I couldn't stand them! But for over a decade or more I've come to love them! In fact Beet Smoothies are my fave when we're out and about. Sooo good.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Pea soup was my mom's favorite soup. Speaking of fresh garden peas, I can remember, as a child, sitting at the kitchen table on a summertime weekend at my grandmother's house watching (and learning) while my grandmother Anne and great-grandmother Banny 'shucked' peas. A few raw peas were munched on too. :) Love peas.

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  3. I'm not a big pea eater, but my husband is. He loves peas and so do my children. I'm going to try that pea soup for lunch soon. I think everyone in the house would be happy with that, even me, since the prep time is only 35 minutes. Great pea recipes suggestions Dawn!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I used to eat peas all the time until a friend who often came for dinner said he didn't like them. So I almost stopped using them. He died. So I've started using them again. I normally make split pea soup in fall and winter when it's cold out. I've never tried smashing peas. I'm also not a fan of the layered recipes I've seen because they all include some ingredients not included in our present diet. There is a pea/cucumber salad I made years ago that I just may make again one of these days. Thank you for reminding me that I should include more peas in my diet again. There is no reason anymore not to include them in the salads I have for lunch frequently.

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  5. Oh Dawn the only kind of peas I like are the ones used in Chinese cooking, pods and all. I guess my dislike comes from one of my pregnancies when I craved peas and got so sick on them that I could not even enter a room where they were cooking. It's too bad really, because until that time I really enjoyed them. This time I think I will pass up on adding peas to anything.

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