Pad thai – now with catfish!
So I wanted to try pad thai again but was out of shrimp. So I defrosted some catfish I bought from the Farmers’ Fresh online store and chopped up about a third of a pound in place of shrimp.
All of the produce that went into the pad thai was from Farmers’ Fresh…
* cilantro flowers * Chinese cabbage * beet stems * green onions * eggs * snow peas
The peanuts I threw in at the last minute, however, were from a Hilton Garden Inn.
I tell you that fish sauce smells terrrrrible when you add it to the pan. But it turns out pretty darn good.
Red Russian kale with raisins and pine nuts
Chris and I have been totally digging Tuscan kale with raisins and pine nuts. My mom gave me this recipe years ago to try, and last year it finally took.
Red Russian stems are more substantial than Tuscan stems, and they don’t cook up as well. So I separated the stems and froze them in the hopes that they’ll make it in a veggie stock or something.
The good news is Red Russian kale is just as good as Tuscan.
Especially when served with delicious baby beets and goat cheese as well as warm bread and garlic slow-cooked in olive oil for dipping.
Finally with the Sea Island Red Peas
Ever have that sinking feeling where you start reading a recipe before cooking and the first ingredient is…
2 cups Sea Island Red Peas soaked in water overnight
D’oh!
That’s what happened to me Monday when I wanted to make the red peas with this recipe from goosethemarket.com. So I had to put it off until today.
Here’s the set-up.
- garlic
- canned chicken stock (I know, I know. I hope to have some real chicken stock soon.)
- curry powder, crushed red pepper, and bay leaves
- chopped onion
- soaked Sea Island red peas
- chopped celery leaves
Instead of jowl bacon (whatever that is), I cooked the onions in sausage drippings. A pound of sausage cooked up yields a little less than a 1/4 cup – plenty enough to cook onion and flavor peas. I also skipped the last step of pureeing some of the peas. Had no desire to clean my food processor when the peas looked perfectly good as they were.
The results were quite tasty. We ate them with emergency goat cheese biscuits and a salad of lettuce, baby spinach, and beet greens.
Woo-hoo!
thoughtful consumption 
Looks good, as always! I will cook up some of those peas real soon. I am curious about “emergency” goat cheese biscuits though…..
we were arguing over supper tonight about “cow” vs. “sea island” peas! They look the same to me! I was raised in upstate So. Caro. on cow peas, and you are calling them sea island peas. What’s the difference? It’s hard not to call a pea a “field” pea since 99% of all peas are raised in fields, or have I missed something…? But, we do refer to these tasty (my favs) peas as field peas, also, but, certainly not Sea Island peas. Maybe there is a slight flavor difference if something is raised on or near a marsh that has a higher salinity in the H2O? nancy
Hi, Nancy,
Scroll down http://ansonmills.com/rice.htm to read about Sea Island Red peas. It says they are a heirloom variety of field pea. I guess since peas have been cultivated in South Carolina for centuries, it makes sense that there are a bunch of varieties. Maybe on the islands, the varieties would have been even more distinct because of the isolation. Just guessing, though!
Susan