We’re somewhat sick of lettuce.
Our meal planning now goes something like this:
Brad: What should we have for dinner?
Me: Oh, I don’t know. How about–
Brad: Just not a salad.
Me: –salad. Oh. How about roasted vegetables OVER a salad?
Brad: Eh. Maybe salmon. On top of a salad?
Me: Blech.
Brad: We could saute a salad with mushrooms…
Me: …and put it over raw greens? We need something raw.
Brad: Do you just want a smoothie?
So my new thing has been non-leafy salads. (And I’ll be honest. We usually throw them over leafy greens in the end. Some habits are hard to break.) I found this one in last month’s Food and Wine and I’ve been making it about once a week since. Sweet peas, crunchy pea shoots, sharp onions, cleansing parsley, and a hit of acid? This salad is singing my song. It’s rowing my boat. It’s blowing my hair out. And it’s satisfying my appetite for unlettuce.
A few things to note: I haven’t tried this with fresh peas because we haven’t seen them at our market yet. I use the frozen organic peas from Trader Joe’s. I made this once with thin shavings of red onions, which was delicious, but not as delicious as the green onions. Green onions are one of those secret ingredients that make just about everything taste amazing. They are to salads what vanilla extract is to smoothies. Lastly, we topped this with sliced hard-boiled eggs to make a light dinner and you should, too. When in doubt, put an egg on it!
peas and pea shoots with onions and parsley
lightly adapted from Food and Wine
makes about 4 entree servings
1 lb. frozen peas (4 cups)
2-1/2 to 3 tablespoons coconut oil, divided
4 green onions, sliced into small pieces
Sea salt
3 cups lightly packed tender pea shoots
1/2 cup parsley, roughly minced
Freshly ground black pepper
Juice of one lemon
In a large saucepan in boiling salted water, cook the peas until they are just tender, about 3 minutes. Drain.
In the same saucepan, heat 1-1/2 tablespoons coconut oil. Add the onions and a pinch of salt, cover and cook over moderately low heat, stirring occasionally, until softened, 5 minutes. Remove from heat and stir into the peas along with the remaining coconut oil, pea shoots, parsley, and pepper.
Just before serving, squeeze fresh lemon juice over the peas.