The fall garden is doing well. The star crops right now are jalapenos, radishes, peas and carrots. I don’t really know what to do with many of the jalapenos, I have been putting them in soups mostly. Radishes has been going in anything I think they might work it, salads, cole slaw, roasted veggies. Just this week the peas were big enough to start harvesting and the carrots needed to be thinned so I thought peas and carrots. I regret this decision a little, because my husband has this weird thing were he loves quoting “Forrest Gump” so once I told him we would have peas and carrots, he told me “Jenny and I were like peas and carrots” for the whole day.
This is the first time I have ever cooked peas and carrots together as a side dish. They have been together is veggie soup, or chicken and dumplings. I had a bit of a fear of them to be honest. I ate frozen peas and carrot when I was a kid, and it was horrible. For years I would not eat cooked carrots because I was sure they would be nasty. I got over that a few years ago thanks to “honey and ginger glazed carrots”, but when I decided to try cooking pea and carrots together I was a little nervous and it made me feel a bit sick. I know, weird right? I love cooked carrots now, especially fresh ones. And fresh peas from the garden are pretty fool proof delicious. And yet, part of me was afraid that if I put them together some sort of dark magic would happen and they would both become horrible.
Thankfully I was wrong. It was delicious. I just cooked them with butter, a bit of water and salt until tender. It was veggie sweet, salty and perfect. I will not have enough peas again for about a week, and carrots might be longer. But as soon as I can harvest them both at the same time again, this is going to happen again.
I planted more carrots on Sunday with the hopes that I will have carrots to eat all winter. Peas of course will die at the first frost unless I can make a cold frame or something for them. This is the second year I have tried to grow food all though the winter. It is nice to always have something out there. Makes me feel quite self-reliant.