My new favorite uses for peas

I wanted to make some healthy dips for the SW Gardens kickoff day today so I went back to green pea spread. This is my new go-to dip: thaw a bag of frozen petite peas, get some seasonings, put it all in the food processor, add a little olive oil, press the whirr button. That's all. It's really good on whole wheat crackers or rye crisps. You could put it on bread bruschetta-style or even dip carrots in it. I haven't put it on pasta yet but I could I made two versions this time.

A note on frozen peas: the petite peas are much sweeter so don't get the ones just called "peas." 

Lemon Pea Dip
A vegan variation of Peas and Parmesan Dip from the Kitchen Window
Ingredients:

• 1 bag (about 10 -12 oz or so?) frozen petite green peas, thawed
• finely grated zest of one lemon
• 1 T fresh lemon juice
• 2 T olive oil
• 4 cloves garlic, peeled and roasted
• salt to taste

Roast the garlic. You can just put the cloves in a dry pan for several minutes on moderate heat, shaking occasionally. Don't burn them. Roasting the garlic softens and sweetens the flavor but you can also use them raw if you want it stronger. Trim any hard roots off the roasted garlic cloves. Toss them in the food processor along with the rest of the ingredients. Process until smooth. Adjust salt and lemon juice to taste. Sometimes I add black pepper and sometimes I don't.

Peacamole 
Modified from Clotilde at C&Z
Ingredients:

• 1 bag (about 10 -12 oz or so?) frozen petite green peas, thawed 
• a small bunch fresh cilantro (I used about half the cilantro bundle I bought at Safeway)
• 2 T olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic, peeled
• 1/2 t Marion Street Garden's Flying Fish Pepper Hot Sauce (or use sriracha if you aren't lucky enough to have some from Marion Street)
• salt to taste

Trim any hard roots off the garlic cloves and coarsely chop the cilantro. Put the garlic, cilantro, hot sauce, olive oil, and 1 cup of peas in the food processor. Blend smooth. Add the rest of the peas. Process to desired texture (smooth or chunky). Adjust salt and hot sauce to taste. Eat on anything or just use a spoon. 

Look closely at the food spread from the garden party today and you can see my two bowls of pea spread behind the carrots. 

And some pictures of us

Mari is thinking

So is Evan

But Sarah and Kuma are napping

Aren't we cozy?

Ready for the ride.

Bye to New Haven

The cousins

Walking around New Haven

That's what we did, ate and walked. It was a really nice weekend.

Sleeping Giant State Park 

Into Sleeping Giant State Park

The woods in winter

With spring running over the rocks

Can you spot the wild Evan?

Climbing East Rock

Crossing Mill River

Evan and Kuma well bundled up

Panorama from the top. This is most of New Haven.

Evan lives about half way up the main street (Orange Street) and slightly to the left.

A hundred years ago the New Haven town fathers put a great monument on the top of the hill. 

Looking down at turkey vultures. Can you spot all 4?

Descending the Giant's Steps

Houses of New Haven

Lots of great Victorian houses here. Evan lives on the top floor of the blue one. 

Walking around Yale

They have a nice campus although I think the architecture is sometimes over-the-top historical re-creationist. And not even American history, they are trying to be Oxford-on-the-sound or something. It was really fun to get the insider tour from Evan on a beautiful sunny Saturday. All of the undergrads are gone because it is the middle of spring break.

The biology building on Science Hill

More science buildings, I'm not sure which.

 

The Farmington Canal path through campus--it will be a long bike route once the outer reaches are done.

The outside of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

They have a glass tower of books in the middle, rather like the King's Collection at the British Library.

I really enjoyed this display of book endpapers.

The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald

There is the Yale main library--designed as a church of knowledge

Evan in his place

Very scholarly gargoyles

An inner courtyard, probably at Bramford College

More Oxfordian architecture

The overwrought tower--Frank Llyod Wright famously preferred to stand inside so he wouldn't have to look at it!

Another green

The main lounge at Branford College where Evan is an Affiliated Graduate Student

Escaping the gates

Here's their seal

Now this is the oldest building on campus. Cool Federalist architecture! Why did they abandon it? Appropriately enough this is the Philosophy building.

It's a carved puppy detailing a pillar.

The courtyard of the law school. 

Feet on flagstones.

A different attempt at building a college. This was supposed to have ivy-covered walls but ivy doesn't like the mortar they used! So this block sticks out like a sore thumb. 

Bye Yale! Nice to see you. 

Eating in New Haven with Mari and Evan

Continued from the last post...

The first thing Mari did when I arrived Friday night was plot our plan of attack on her favorite New Haven restaurants. Nothing loath, I of course acquiesced immediately!

Here's the list:

• Saturday breakfast: toast and tea (in preparation for)
• Saturday lunch: Caseus
• Saturday dinner: light meal at home (to recover from Caseus)
• Saturday night: cocktails at Jonathan's
• Sunday morning: brunch at Bella's
• Sunday 4 pm: New Haven pizza at Modern
• Sunday evening: Amaretto cocoa and cookies at home
• Monday breakfast: Evan's scones, eggs, and Sarah's tomato-orange marmalade

As you can see we had a busy schedule! Fortunately we did intersperse all that eating with some hikes around the Yale campus, through Sleeping Giant State Park, and up East Rock.

The food in chronological order

Caseus: Poutine, Kale and Grain Salad, Flatbread pizza with kale, braised buffalo rib meat, and tangy mustard sauce.

Drew's favorite Basque cider at Caseus. It is slightly sour and yeasty, went really well with the flatbread pizza.

Our own cheese plate with apple, nuts, and red wine for a light supper.

No pictures of Jonathan's cocktails--the grapefruit margarita was wonderful though.

We had brunch at Bella's with Sam and Jess. Sam's a social worker with the local VA hospital and Jess is in the first year of the advanced practice nursing program at Yale so we talked shop a lot. I hope we didn't bore Mari and Evan too much, but Jess and I had a great time! Bella's food takes a while so we had plenty of time to talk too. It was so worth waiting for that I didn't even manage to take any pictures. Oh well, you will just have to imagine the following: eggs Benedict with slabs of ham steak, coconut-crusted challah french toast with bananas in rum praline sauce, poached eggs on crispy crusted cod and crab cakes with cilantro remoulade, blueberry banana pancakes piled with strawberries and whipped cream, and fried polenta rounds with broccoli rabe in spicy tomato sauce. It really was just as good as it sounds too.

Clam casino pizza for dinner. 

New Haven pizza is always thin crust and often with white sauce like this clam, pepper, and bacon version. (They don't permit ham and pineapple either--you have to go out west for that.)

We had lucky eggs Monday morning, two of the three were double yolkers!

Peeled grapefruit, scones, eggs, and multiple kinds of jam.

I waved Mari and Evan on their way this morning and warmed up the rest of the pizza in the oven for lunch. It was really good with pineapple salsa on it for some variety the second time around. Take that oh anti-pineapple New Haven pizza culture! I should be all set for my train ride this evening.