Thanks to all those who commented. You made my mind up for me! I resolved the eat-it-or-plant-it dilemma by splitting the difference. I saved some for seed, not enough for the whole of next year’s planting, which will give me a good excuse to keep looking for the variety I lost a few years ago, but enough plant a couple of rounds. Not enough to grow snow pea sprouts, but I like that idea so much I’m going to deliberately grow enough for sprouting next year, but start sprouting them a bit earlier while the weather is still cool enough.
So after putting this little bag aside, I cooked up the rest. They made a lovely little tub of hummus that we’ll eat on our sandwiches for lunch all week. Hummus is really low GI, so it’s a good breakfast or lunch food, keeps your blood sugar nice and high and stable. Combined with the grain in bread, it’s a pretty complete protein, and a good source of lots of vitamins and minerals. Peas are also rich in a phytonutrient called coumestrol, which is good for preventing osteoporosis along with several kinds of cancer, and lowering cholesterol at the same time.
The Recipe:
Cook ¾ cup of dried peas – traditionally chick peas (garbanzos), but you can use any kind of pea – till very soft. This is fastest in a pressure cooker, but just boiling works fine. How long it will take depends on how fresh the peas are. The older and drier they are, the longer they will take. These ones were quite dry but relatively fresh, and they took 20 minutes in the pressure cooker.
If you use a pressure cooker, don’t overfill it and don’t turn it up too high. The peas have skins that separate from them and can clog up the pressure valve if they boil too furiously.
When the peas are cooked, drain them but keep the liquid.
Use a stick blender, blender, food processor, or a mouli to blend the cooked peas with with:
- 2 dessertspoons of tahini
- 2 dessertspoons of lemon juice
- 2 cloves garlic
- salt to taste
- enough of the pea cooking water to make it a smooth paste consistency. (If I am making it for a dip, I add a bit more and make it a little thinner than if I am making it for a spread).
Thank you for this recipe… I happen to have tahini at the moment, and have been thinking about making some hommus! I have some dried rattlesnake beans from last year, wonder if that would work OK?!
Never tried making hummus from beans. I imagine it would be different – beans have a different flavour – but good – tahini, beans, garlic, lemon all go together nicely. Love to hear how it goes.
Sounds good enough to eat! 😉 I use ‘field peas’ to make the sprouts – real Snow Pea seeds are woefully expensive but the Field Peas are quite cheap and organic from the sprouting guy in Sydney. They really don’t like the hot weather and I don’t have anywhere cool but light so I’ve stopped doing them for summer and instead do Buckwheat and Sunflowers (both are Queensland-grown organic from Green Harvest). If anyone ever can get Kale to set seed, do and keep the seed if you like sprouts, Kale seed is around $500 a kilo!
that looks lovely – I have only ever used chickpeas for hummus. It is so useful to have some on hand in the fridge.
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