Snow Peas

I rarely purchase snow peas, fresh or frozen, from my grocery store. (Sadly, it's the same story with sugar snaps.) The frozen ones are flabby and the allegedly fresh ones never look particularly fresh. So, you can imagine the squeal of delight when I opened the CSA box this week and spied real, honest-to-goodness, perfect and unblemished snow peas. I used them in a lovely shrimp stir-fry with a basic fried rice -- using carrots, onions and frozen English peas as the veg. The stir-fry's pink and green combination, suitable for Muffy's favorite Bermuda bag or perhaps a Lilly Pulitzer sundress, was dazzling, exceeded only by the taste -- first-rate.

Shrimp Stir-Fry with Celery and Snow Peas

1 lb. raw shrimp, peeled
a tablespoon or two of vegetable oil
1/2 onion, thinly sliced
1 cup chopped celery
1/2 lb. snow peas, trimmed & de-stringed
1 garlic clove
1 1-inch piece of ginger

1. Prep all ingredients and place a wok or 10-inch skillet over high heat and pour in oil. I use a wok skillet, seasoned to ebony nonstick perfection through years of cooking. Using a microplane or other grater, finely grate the garlic and ginger.

2. When oil is just shy of smoking, pour in onion and celery. Stir until slightly softened, a few minutes. Add snow peas and continue cooking for a few minutes. Add shrimp and cook, stirring all the while, until the shrimp are cute pink curls, reminiscent of the giant snail in "Dr. Doolittle" (Rex Harrison version).

3. When the shrimp are cooked through, make a well in the center and pour in the garlic and ginger mixture. Cook a minute or so more, stirring to integrate the garlic and ginger throughout.

4. Serve immediately with steamed rice or fried rice.

CSA: Celebrating Seasonal Abundance

Beauty Shots

Above: Farmers Fresh CSA New Member Pack &

Below: This Week's Produce

It may be raining outside, but it's a beautiful day inside my house because I picked up my first Farmers Fresh CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) shipment of the year. I waited a bit late to join in this year -- the program started in March, but I'm so glad I signed up. The box is filled, literally filled with lettuces, beets still clinging to bits of soil, and snow peas, snow peas! vibrant green and just-picked crisp, crying out to be stir-fried!

The new member pack was a nice surprise, a Farmers Fresh tote filled with grains, honey, coffee and the makings for herbal tea. This is a picture of the member's package, along with my girls' opening the presents: goat's milk soap samples and lip balms.

And this is what I plan to cook with the CSA bounty:

1. Strawberries. The favored Mercer method of strawberry consumption is to clean the berries, hull and halve them and serve them with a bowl of demerara sugar. I used to mail order demerara, but now you can buy organic demerara at Kroger or Wal-Mart, just look near the granulated sugar. It has the molasses taste of brown sugar, but it's less refined and less moist, so you get non-melty crunch with each luscious bite. If I get ambitious, and if the berries last long enough, I'm tempted to make a simple pavlova, with a slow-baked meringue base and simple sugared berries serve on top.

2. Snow peas. I could go all Martha and make that ridiculously time-consuming, but very tasty, stuffed snow pea appetizer. I think that will have to wait. I think shrimp and snow peas will make an excellent stir-fry for supper. Maybe some fried rice on the side, which will incorporate the beautiful green onion.

3. The beautiful green onion can be used in the fried rice/stir-fry combo mentioned above or perhaps in a comforting potato soup. BTW, I've been waiting all year for the CSA potatoes. I have a collection of leek greens in my freezer, so the onion greens will surely go into my next batch of vegetable stock.

4. This week's herb bundle includes cilantro, admittedly, not a favorite, although I'm not one of those cilantro haters who detect a soapy taste in the green herb. This month's Fine Cooking has a recipe for Kohlrabi and Radish Slaw with Cumin and Cilantro that deserves a try.

5. Loose Leaf and Hydroponic Lettuces. Initial game plan is to use them in salads, but I'll keep in mind a Jacques Pepin recipe that uses a vinaigrette-dressed salad as a base for a simple pan-fried piece of fish.

6. Beets. I love beets, especially pickled beets on a Greek Salad (see last summer's post). A few months back I made roasted vegetables with dill from a Gourmet Cookbook recipe. I think that may merit a second try. Served with a nice piece of steak, or perhaps a roasted chicken breast.