Browsing Tag:

snow peas

Side dish/ Vegetables

Spring Peas with Dates and Walnuts

Just love those little sugar snap peas!

Are you old enough to remember your mother or grandmother sitting in a chair with an apron cupped in her lap and a bowl of peas. I remember my dad’s mother doing just that and she was in a rocking chair rocking away the afternoon shelling peas that she was probably going to be cooking for dinner that night. My mother shelled peas and so did my other grandmother. Do we have time for that now in our busy lives? Maybe we need to make the time and slip back to a more relaxed day where our mother’s and grandmother’s did such a simple task and how they probably benefitted mentally just to chill and think of the day’s activities.

I actually did try to find English peas in the shell, but no luck. Now if I was still in France, I probably could find them in one of the local market places. I loved this recipe before I even had it on my dish. Sugar snap peas are one of my favorites with a good dill dip and snow peas I have been using for years. I actually use to stuff each one for an appetizer — Honey Pecan Stuffed Snow Peas. My kids were never a fan of English peas when they were young, but I’m sure they would like this dish. I plan on making this for my daughter-in-law in Chicago in a couple of weeks; she loves English peas.

I found this recipe in Food Network magazine and all I added was the pancetta. And I would only make one change in the cooking directions and that would be to add thawed English peas at the end so they don’t overcook and become too dark.  I would prefer them to stay bright green.

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Appetizers/ ColdApp

Honey Pecan Stuffed Snow Peas

I know you may be thinking “she’s crazy for stuffing those tiny little pods”, but they are always a hit a party.

When I started catering 20 years ago it seemed like everything idea I came up with involved a lot of time and handling of food. But, I have to say, those are usually the appetizers people go crazy for. Anyone can throw out a cheese tray or deli tray so I tend to like appetizers that people know you went to a little extra trouble making. I usually cringe when someone calls me and ask me if I do “trays”. What comes to mind when I think “trays” are piles of cheese or little hoagie sandwiches with those frilly little picks sticking out of the top.

I’ve stuffed black olives with pepperoni and then piped in a flavored cream cheese, I have stuffed rigatoni bites, and the Parmesan Bacon Wraps I make are to die for and they take a couple of hours almost in the oven.

 

This is a great little recipe I first tried about 10 years ago from “Come On In” cookbook. A few years ago I was catering a wedding and I had the menu all prepared for 75 guest. I had planned on doing these snow peas. Normally I would have done 150, which would have been 2 per person. Well, the guest list kept growing and growing and finally ended up at 225.  So the night before the wedding I’m sitting (by myself) stuffing 450 snow peas. I think it took me about 4 hours just to do the peas. After that, I never put them on the menu for 50 or more people — they just takes way too long to do these for large parties.

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