Mashed Peas

No, we haven't started eating baby food, but this would be a great recipe for an older baby, one that has started to eat yogurt and cheese. This recipe is great comfort food, however. I saw Nigella make it one evening when I was watching my store of dvr'd cooking shows. I like Nigella (although sometimes her drama gets a little old), and she is one of the few TV chefs whose recipes I actually use. There is only one of her recipes that I didn't like and it was the fault of the hard cider I used to make it (at least I think it was).

Last week Faith and I found ourselves alone for Friday night supper, with the menfolk out for Friday night football. We decided to cook these mashed peas for ourselves to go along with salmon patties and oven fried potatoes. They were really, really good and both of us were sad that we only had one serving (the recipe is really written for one person, but is very doable for more than one, and I have rewritten it for serving to a family (and using the whole bag of frozen peas). I omitted the mint in the recipe because I only had fresh (in the garden) and, frankly, I was too lazy to head out and cut some (that's pretty lazy isn't it?). I also used Greek yogurt because creme fraiche is not available to me.

This recipe would be great with almost any meat, but I imagine it would be fantastic with some braised beef or lamb. Yum.

Note: you do need a food processor for this recipe.

Mashed Peas

2 cloves garlic

salt

12 oz. bag frozen peas

3 -4 T. creme fraiche (or Greek yogurt or sour cream)

3 - 4 T. grated Parmesan cheese

1 t. dried mint

Fill a medium pan with cold water and throw in the whole cloves of garlic. Bring to the boil and then add salt and the peas. Cook until tender, drain, and put into a food processor, or blender, and add the creme fraiche, cheese, and dried mint. Puree the peas until "knobbly" (roughly mashed with a little texture remaining) and check the seasoning, adding salt if you need to. Serve immediately or spoon back into the pan to keep warm (they get cool pretty fast).

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Source: modified from Nigella Lawson

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