Southern Therapy... RIGHT!

A week ago today, David received an entire black trash bag full of peas.

(please mind you, this story is not to make me appear ungrateful for our generous gift of peas - but it absolutely will make me sound ignorant).

Naturally, when I arrived home (after a long day and drive) I walked into our kitchen, and what sits on the floor? An ENTIRE black trash bag full of peas! WHAT!? Now, apparently all other southern people would be geeking out over this said treasure... me not so much. I don't like peas. So, the fact that these peas (that I don't like) require work and I have to do it... um, ya...excited wouldn't be the correct word choice.

So, last Friday night Aunt Char insisted that we bring the bag of peas over to her house and she would teach us how to shell/blanch/whatever these peas. She told us it was great southern therapy and we would have a wonderful time! Ok, great. Not exactly my idea of a Friday night, BUT at least my kitchen would be minus a large black trash bag when I return. SO, I agreed.

I knew that I didn't like peas for a reason. I should have known from the start it was going to go down hill. But nope, not me, I walked right into ignorance with gusto.

With three HUGE pans in front of us, we sat down and began the process of shelling the peas (by hand). I have since learned there are pea sheller things that do this for you, but since we were fresh out of the 'do it for you way' - we resorted to our meager hands for the job.

Apparently, some people really get excited about shelling peas. You can rest assured I am not one of them. First of all, this is not a clean job. It is messy. The pea shells have to be split open. If you wait too long to shell peas there pod gets soggy and that is just enough to make you barf. (I am texture person, and this just crosses all kinds of texture lines). It is tedious. Once you get the hang of how to split the things open the process goes a faster, but to start out - it is slow! The peas have a mind of their own. Pretty sure half of my pile ended up everywhere but in the pan. LOL.

The picture below is absolutely accurate.

 This is after we blanched them and put them in the freezing water before they go into the bags.

I think the worst part of this whole process was going through the peas when we were washing them and picking out one by one the 'bad' ones. Again, it is just tedious. Blanching them wasn't so bad. After 3 hours of work, we ended up with 5 quart size bags full of peas. We let Aunt Char have 3 since 1). she likes peas, but 2). we used all her stuff - so it was kind of like our payment or 'thank you' to her. We took 2 bags home. We have since given 1 bag away and now we have 1 still in our freezer. David is excited to cook them, me on the other hand - not so much. Big surprise right? While I am out of town he will have a delightful serving of peas all to himself. :)