Vegetable Garden Week 7 - April 24

The garden is looking good! I was worried that after the cold snap after planting these seeds that they might suffer, but so far they're looking very healthy! The snap peas are already almost six inches high, the radishes are growing like crazy and there are little red bulbs just under the dirt, and the lettuce looks very thick and healthy so far. 

June 12 - Vegetable Garden Week 11

This is belated, but last weekend we had snap peas and lots of lettuce!

A salad with super freshly picked lettuce is just so much better and tastier and crunchier. It's the best. The adorable container up there with the snap peas is ceramic and from my friend Kara and will get so much use this summer for snap peas, grape tomatoes, and other little garden items. Thanks, Kara!

Easy Spicy Grilled Snap Peas

We have an abundance of snap peas and I've been trying to think of new ways to cook them/eat them. They're so good when they are raw and have a nice crunch, but that's a little limiting. We were grilling last night, so I took a couple of handfuls of snap peas and tossed them with olive oil, a little minced garlic, salt, cayenne, a little cumin, and a pinch of sugar. Jamie grilled them for about 5 minutes. They were warm and crunchy and a little charred with a great sweet, spicy, fresh flavor. Such a nice way to serve them, and an excellent side dish.

The dogs were interested in the snap peas.

Garden - Week 8, May 3

The garden is doing well! I forgot to take more pictures, but the snap peas are growing really well, the regular peas only have like 3 shoots, the lettuce is coming up nicely, the swiss chard isn't really, the zucchini hasn't come up yet, neither has the cucumber. The radishes are doing really well and I culled/thinned them a bit, resulting in a couple adorable micro radishes. They were peppery and delicious.

Garden - Week 1, March 15

It's time to start the garden! Can you believe it? It has been such a long, cold winter, but there are some things you can plant as soon as the ground can be worked, and if you have raised garden beds, the ground can probably be worked now.

Pickled Snap Peas

I have so many snap peas and was bored on Saturday morning (Jamie's in Germany for work). I went out and filled a basket and decided to pickle them. I love any sort of pickles, and can't wait to make these again, so I figured snap peas would be good. I used this recipe as a base, but also added some extra spices. They're supposed to pickle for two weeks, but I tried one on Sunday and they were already tasty. Bright and acidic and actually even more crunchy than before! Can't wait to have them in a salad or next to a burger or BLT. We'll see what Jamie thinks. He's a purist and just likes eating snap peas raw.

Ingredients:
About 2 cups of snap peas
3/4 cup white vinegar
3/4 cup cold water
1/2 tbsp kosher salt
1/2 tbsp sugar
2 garlic cloves, sliced
big pinch of red pepper flakes
a few pinches each of coriander seeds, cumin seeds, caraway seeds, fennel seeds, turmeric