Recent Dinners, Part Two: I Ate Peas

I finally remembered a way to use peas that wasn't awful. They weren't my CSA peas unfortunately (though I look forward to using my now-local-pea-enriched compost next year), but at least now I can be prepared should I get them again.

The dish was inspired by one I had at Petit Pois many months ago: gnocchi with a roasted carrot sauce with peas. In my version, I used tri-colored gnocchi, organic carrots, homegrown thyme, a sauteed quarter of a local onion, a clove of local garlic, organic chicken stock, a dollop of local sour cream...and some peas I found in my freezer.

Field Trip: Eating Locally in the Chesapeake Bay

I'm proud to say that my wife and I just celebrated our fifth year of marriage.  To commemorate the occasion, we spent the weekend at The Tides Inn, a small, fancy-pants resort on the Rappahannock river near the Chesapeake Bay.

Needless to say, we had a great time.

The Dos and D'ohs! of Gardening, Part Three: I Made a Pepper!

Here it is, the first product of the vegetable garden I re-planted a few weeks ago: an Anaheim chili. I probably should have taken a picture of it while still on the plant, but I was too excited. I did manage not to eat it raw, however, opting instead to save it for the chicken and veggie tostadas I made last night.

Gardening is awesome.

More squash...but aren't they cute?

I seem to be on a bit of a squash kick lately, but I just couldn't pass up this trio of baby rounds from Down Branch Farms via Retail Relay (or Relay Foods, as they are now called). Pretty as the were, I couldn't bear to do anything but simply halve, season, and roast them. As for the leftover zucchini and yellow squash from last week: they had a date with my shredder.

Recent Dinners

As described in my last post, I got a couple's share from Horse & Buggy CSA last week with all kinds of goodies inside. I'm happy to say that I've been able to use every one of those goodies, save one: the peas. I'll admit, I'm not a big pea fan, but that wasn't why I didn't use them. I think it mainly came down to the fact that I have no idea how to cook them. Do you boil them? Blanch them? Split, roast, and mash them?

Horse & Buggy Produce: Couple's Share

On Friday I got my most anticipated order from Retail Relay yet: my first share of fruits and vegetables from Horse & Buggy Produce. I felt kinda like the cooks on Food Network's Chopped, opening their black mystery baskets to uncover the assorted goodies inside.

I can't say I was disappointed by the variety. This week's 'mystery basket' contained:

Adventures with Rhubarb

I have had very little experience with rhubarb in my life. In fact, I don't even recall being introduced to it until sometime in my teens, and then it was only in passing. I do recall believing it to be some sort of celery, so that probably didn't help things (I'm not a big celery fan...unless it's prettied up with some peanut butter and raisins).

Just recently, however, my curiosity was piqued by a recipe I saw in the spring chapters of Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle for strawberry rhubarb crisp. So, I allowed my burgeoning inner seasonal eater to take the wheel, and a'rhubarb shopping I went.