Peas porridge not

Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot, nine days old.

Don’t buy the organic peas from Trader Joe’s. They are inedible! Apparently it matters whether or not the package says “baby peas” or not. It’s not just a marketing ploy. Don’t buy peas if they aren’t itty little baby ones. (You have to say that in a fast, high pitched voice “little itty bitty!” There you go.)

I bought these, and cooked them slightly, like I would typically cook a frozen vegetable – hardly at all.

Mistake. They were a pretty bright green, but woody and tough. Worse yet, they gave me a stomach ache!

So I put the rest in the refrigerator, and the next day I boiled them till they turned a funny green, like my grandma would have. They were still tough!

So on the the third day, I put those tough bastards in the crock pot! With a little bacon and onion and carrots and bay leaf. (Everything’s better with bacon). I turned that crock pot on and left the house.

Some long time later, those peas were still tough! Here I am trying (and mostly failing) to mash them with a potato masher. Uh, this is war.

I considered running them in my blender, but I figured that would make a colossal mess. So I just turned the crock pot back on for several more hours. Eventually the bacon was completely dissolved and the onion a bare wisp of translucence.

Here is one serving, packaged up to take to work for lunch.

The verdict? Stomach ache! The rest went down the disposal. Take that, peas!