The day after the farmer's market is my cooking day. I usually have lots of vegetables to cook up for the week's menu. Here you see some stringless green beans with fresh tomatoes and peppers added. I also added some sweet white onion. From the garden I cut some fresh herbs of oregano, sage, and rosemary to add. I gave half to my neighbors since I worry they may not eat enough vegetables.
Later I cooked some fresh pink lady field peas with the same added ingredients. The pink ladys are similar to black eyed peas but smaller and sweeter. I also used the sweet white onions I purchased from Amish growers at the farmer's market. I was surprised at how sweet the onions actually are. I could eat a section of onion and it wasn't harsh or tangy at all. The onions made for an altogether different taste to the staple recipes I normally use. Try something new, you might be surprised. A real treat at the market was seeing the farmer from 7M farms shelling the peas in a mechanical sheller. Didn't have my camera but here's the machine which makes short work of shelling peas.
I'm reminded of how my grandmother used to peel new potatoes. She'd fill up a large tub with water add the potatoes and then add rough shale rock. Next she would stir the mixture with a stick and the rotating water and rock would automatically peel all the potatoes. I miss my grandmother; there isn't a week which goes by I don't wish I had a few more hours to learn of all the knowledge she could impart to me. Please spend time with your elders they have a multitude of knowledge to impart.
Up next are Jerusalem or old world okra, short and fat, which I got from my honey farmer, Don. Don specializes in heirloom varieties of vegetables and most he uses himself but occasionally he brings some to market and they are well worth exploring. We shall see how these differ from the ones I usually purchase. Thanks for reading and for all your comments.
Hi Sue, thanks, I feel a lack of a lot too because I know very little about both sides of my family as my parents were very secretive, my great grandmother was a full blood Cherokee, wish I knew more about that and my mom's father was from Greece?
I love sweet onions, Vadalias are my favorite. I still have no clue how that machine got the peas out of the pods...besides making a lot of noise! Families are strange, and my interest in ancestors kind of goes around the current live members and their quirks. Perhaps because information doesn't have to come directly through the generation before us any more...but some of it is on line. But I do miss having heard stories from my grands.
Hi Barbara, thanks, inside the pea machine is a long cylinder with fingers on the sides, the peas drop against the fingers and pop open and the peas fall to the bottom and fall through a screen and then a container is placed below the screen which collects the shelled peas, they can then be packaged up. Inside the machine the shells remain and must be gathered up to be added to the compost pile I suppose. Neither of us have many current family members so we have our memories.
What a fascinating way to peel new potatoes. I never knew any of my relatives, and feel the lack.
ReplyDeleteHi Sue, thanks, I feel a lack of a lot too because I know very little about both sides of my family as my parents were very secretive, my great grandmother was a full blood Cherokee, wish I knew more about that and my mom's father was from Greece?
DeleteAll the pea shelling machines in my life sat on the porch and did the job.
ReplyDeleteHi Joanne, thanks, it was a pleasure to see the machine in action, here I thought they were shelling all those peas by hand, I should have known, Ha.
DeleteI love sweet onions, Vadalias are my favorite. I still have no clue how that machine got the peas out of the pods...besides making a lot of noise! Families are strange, and my interest in ancestors kind of goes around the current live members and their quirks. Perhaps because information doesn't have to come directly through the generation before us any more...but some of it is on line. But I do miss having heard stories from my grands.
ReplyDeleteHi Barbara, thanks, inside the pea machine is a long cylinder with fingers on the sides, the peas drop against the fingers and pop open and the peas fall to the bottom and fall through a screen and then a container is placed below the screen which collects the shelled peas, they can then be packaged up. Inside the machine the shells remain and must be gathered up to be added to the compost pile I suppose. Neither of us have many current family members so we have our memories.
ReplyDeleteI like the look of that string beans and tomatoes and fresh herbs. Excellent.
ReplyDeleteHi Gigi, thanks, oh and they are so good and so good for you too.
ReplyDeleteI never peel potatoes...I never peel any vegetables other than onions. I love vegetables and I love fruit...and eat lots of each. :)
ReplyDeleteYour neighbours are fortunate to have you as their neighbout. :)
Hi Lee, thanks, they help us out a lot too so I hope I can do some small things for them.
ReplyDelete