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I always keep aside a handful of peas from the bag to add to curries and stir fries. A few carrots and a handful of peas give these homemade dishes a pleasing dash of colour whatever else is in them.
So it's peas and potatoes today
Stewed with tomatoes, potatoes, onions, garlic, olive oil and a handful of dill. I always use fresh grated tomatoes, usually from those I have frozen in the summer. Frozen peas by the way take far longer than 2 minutes to cook.
Jamie Oliver puts frozen peas into his dishes at the last minute and lets them cook with the heat from the other ingredients. None of that here. They need at least 20 minutes to half an hour. Did you know peas can be as hard as bullets? Greek peas can. No canned peas available, by the way. That is a good thing. Tinned peas have a completely different taste.
Good old Uncle Stathis (Baba Stathis) flash freezes his peas and beans within an hour of being harvested, so says the ad. Full of taste and a bright fresh green colour to all his vegetables.
We eat many vegetable dishes summer and winter. Cabbage and rice, spinach and rice. beans or okra and potatoes are just some of the favourites. They are served with bread, feta cheese, maybe a few olives and a glass of wine. A healthy mediterranean meal
I must ask what you mean by grated tomato. Do you use a cheese grater while the tomato is still frozen?? I'm curious because the sauce you show in the picture looks so nice and thick, but if I were to add tomatoes to peas and potatoes, they would just be runny, watery tomatoes. How do you make the sauce? Thanks. -Jenn
ReplyDeleteHi Jen. I didn't describe that properly. In the summer I grate the fresh tomatoes on a big cheese grater...it's a greek thing. All you're left with is the skin if you grate the whole tomato. Easier to put it in a little mixer.
ReplyDeleteThen I freeze the juice and pips. Sometimes I boil the juice a little to get rid of all that extra water before freezing but it boils away anyway as the food is cooked. It is watery in the beginning. Sometimes I add a spoon of tomato paste to add more colour.
I love those simple veggie dishes. I think Jenn should understand that our 'mediterranean' tomatoes are mostly solid; none of that water and pips in the middle. You'd have a job to grate those, unless they were frozen.
ReplyDeleteFrom how describe them, I wonder if they are more like what we would call plum tomatoes? They are used mostly for sauce, rather than slicing or eating raw.
DeleteNo, I think those are the Italian 'Roma' tomatoes that are used for canning. Our standard toms are usually quite big, and are quite solid all the way through. They are often called 'beefsteak' or 'Marmande'. One can grate them like an onion.
DeleteThanks Crochet. That's right, they are big and beefy. Good description.
DeletePeas and dill go together! Never heard this. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteWe are very into our vegetables here, since his recent sickness. We must have green "auras", from all the veggies and fruits we are consuming. :-))))
And me, who has been highly *irregular* for ages... I am doing "wonderfully" in that department, too. -grin-
Who knew?!?!?! Eat correctly, and "things work"!
Of course, we know this. We just don't put it into practice.
But you Greeks do!!!!!!! :-)
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Vegetables and lentils/beans are most important and usually eating on season. Frozen peas of course can be cooked at any time.
DeleteAny sort of green leafy vegetable is on the menu right now cos we have had souch rain
The peas grown here for Birds Eye are frozen within an hour of coming off the field; the pea harvest goes on 24 hours a day when the crop is ready and the viners do the work on the field before the peas are taken to the factory for freezing. My family all worked shifts during the pea season as it moved across the farms from one to the next. It is all very quick and a short season. I have frozen peas with nearly everything and happily throw them in curries if I make them. So easy and so good and tasty. As you say, tinned peas taste different but I also have those as well, and enjoy their taste.
ReplyDeleteI love that bright green colour in stews and curries, and the orange of a carrot .
DeleteFrozen peas ads here emphasise the quick freezing. Not sure which part of Greece they are grown but I presume it's a similar process to yours. In fact birds eye probably owns 'barba stathis'
I'm a pea-lover of old, fresh, tinned, frozen, I don't discriminate :)
ReplyDeleteWe ate lots of peas growing up in England, the first thing I look for when I return home are BIG marrowfat peas, I've never found them on the shelves in the US shops. Thank goodness for Publix supermarkets who sport quite a varied import section, the English food, being my first stop :)
Your potatoes and peas look delicious !
Hugs,
~Jo
We have a French brand of frozen peas here, can't remember the brand. Wish we got more English goods.
DeleteMy father always grew peas and I can remember picking, podding and eating them. Delicious
yum that actually looks really good! I'd love to eat that in winter.
ReplyDeletePeas are sweet and tasty. All you need is a hunk of cheese and some fresh bread for that sauce
Deletelip smacking here looking at that dish, right up my street! yum. As for the peas, you can grow those in the shade and ignore when the packet says to grow them. it will be too late by the time you try. Start the peas off in small pots as direct sowing may mean birds eat them. your summer is hotter and dryer than here. grow them in partial shade and if it is hotter earlier, shade clothes. peas dont like it too warm and the end up needing loads of water and end up with the leave going yellow and the peas go hard. if peas are ready to go over here in April, yours will probably have nearly finished by them if they arent in the shade of the house or in a shade tunnel. but birds and hot sun are not their friends. I love peas, I eat them like sweets whilst wandering around the garden. good luck give it a go. I would try sowing them at weekly intervals, make on the pot when started and then where you plant them out and then you can see when you can grow or not in your particular garden.
ReplyDeleteHard peas are quite common here, little bullets
DeleteNow I now why! I should probably we putting seeds in now in sheltered containers. Certainly enough rain just now!
Thanks Sol
we had sleet today. Deep joy. I have no idea what will grow here 2019 is going to be trial and error. A lot of error I think
DeleteSounds good - we eat lots of vegies here as well
ReplyDeleteEverything seems to grow so well down there. So wonderful to see photos of your garden.
DeleteLove cooking all the Greek stews in the slow cooker in the winter
ReplyDeleteIt’s Harty and warms the soul
Today the temps are in the high 30’s so no stews here
But once it cools down again I’ll be relishing them all again
Looks so yummy
Bet you're enjoying salads, salads and more salads just now. And not just boring old Greek salad
ReplyDeleteOk so I'm imagining you with a stand up cheese grater - would a mouli grater work with tomatoes. Most of our Australian grown toms aren't 'solid' so the mouli came to mind.
ReplyDeleteWhat about using the Bamix to pulp up tinned Roma's or would there be too much liquid also did you pre boil the tatties first ?
Tinned mushy peas with a meat pie - yum. Mint sauce on the side lol
A mouli would work fine. I often just put the tomato into a little electric mixer and it comes out as 'juice' You could do the same with tinned tomatoes but why bother. Here you can buy tins of crushed tomatoes. Same sort of thing. Or any kind of tomato pulp.
DeleteAs for pies and mushy peas...please dont!!! Oh boy. How many times have tried to replicate those tastes. Just not the same as those from the pie truck .
Just plain luvliness
Peas are originate from the Mediterranean. Could be too hot when you plant them. I find they do well if you plant them in compost in a piece of plastic roof gutter. Then when they are a few inches tall. Slide them out and plant them in the garden. Some people pour paraffin over the seeds to stop mice attacking them. Good luck.
ReplyDeleteHi Dave. I think I'll have to try putting some seeds somewhere in a sheltered place and then planting them out. Maybe March would be a good time here. The freezing cold (our idea of freezing cold) will be over
DeleteMy kind of food - especially with a hunk of bread for mopping up the sauce. I must sow some dill this year, it's one of the herbs I haven't grown before.
ReplyDelete