thoughtful consumption

Zucchini that looks like watermelon. Cut into an “apple” and find a pit.

Here’s the gorgeous and occasionally curious produce I got this week.

Asian eggplant and a variety of tomatoes

funky, striped zucchini (Anybody else miss Tone Loc?)

plums (not apples), blueberries, and peento peaches

The peaches were so pretty I thought they deserved a close-up.

basil and eggs

creamed honey

field peas

Field peas!

We love fresh field peas, so that’s what we had for supper. As I was shelling them, this little guy crawled across the table.

He was escorted to the fish pond where he made a big goldfish very happy.

Here are the shelled peas.

I chopped some onion and garlic and retrieved some poorly stored celery from the freezer.

I sautéed them in butter and deglazed the pan with a little bit of white wine. At the same time, I defrosted some frozen beef stock I put up this winter and then added that to the peas.

After coming to a boil over medium, the peas simmered for about an hour or so.

(When you're shelling fresh field peas, some peas are beautiful green and others are a less attractive brown. But they all end up brown in the end. I've learned not to be picky when shelling peas.)

The peas were sooo good! I loved the beef and wine flavors. (Wish I’d added a bay leaf, though.) It’s a departure from the traditional salty pork pea recipes, but I was very happy.

Other plans

I went ahead and made pesto with the basil. Kind of wish we’d had fresh tomato and basil salad instead. Might have gone nice with the peas. But I figure it’s better to have pesto than sad, brown basil.

I want to make a cobbler with the peaches and the plums. Or maybe muffins. Or maybe muffin-sized mini-cobblers.

I’m planning on baba ghanoush for the eggplant. I still have some left from last week, too. If push comes to shove, I’ll make tomato stuff with the zucchini, eggplant, and tomatoes. It’s nice to have all those veggies cooked and ready to use, but I could probably do better by all of them with fancier dishes. I’m gping through a decreased cooking mojo phase these days. Maybe a summer thing. At least I’m using up more things from the freezer.