STRETCHING a side dish for two to a SNOW PEA MEDLEY FOR FOUR

Greetings again…  Occasionally, I have a dish that is so good, I can not wait for Thursday to roll around so that I can share this with all the OUR KRAZY KITCHEN folks.  This dish was the best thing I made this week.  And the surprise came because it was a “need to do something” dish.

OK, let’s start with my problem… I screwed up.

Not uncommon.

This week, we had friends from home visiting.  It has been a week of menu planning, showing off a bit and dining out a couple of times!  But, one evening, I discovered I had screwed up… I planned on a simple sautéed snow peas as a compliment to a Rum Braised Mahi Mahi (the fish so nice they named it twice).  I thought the contrasting colors would make for a nice plate.  My problem was the brain fart I made when shopping.  I can buy these by weight instead of pre-packaged.  When I was shopping, I am so used to shopping for just Jackie and myself, I only bought 1/3rd of a pounds worth.  Just enough for two.  But I had to feed 4 people, and the 4 mile round trip walk to get more was not really an option, due to time restraints and laziness (you decide).

I considered making a cornbread, but I had my heart set on snow peas (a favorite).

So, after spending several minutes staring into an open refrigerator (for the cool breeze, I know what is in my fridge), I pulled out some extra veggies to make a melange…

So, another “not really a recipe”, more of a technique post…

Here’s what I did…

I had…

 1 Red Pepper (diced to the size of the snow peas)
1 Sweet Vidalia Onion (diced to the size of the snow peas)
1/3rd pound of Mushrooms (diced to the size of the snow peas)
1/3rd pound of Snow Peas
5 cloves of Garlic (minced)
2 TBS Olive Oil 

First step is to heat your oil with the minced garlic.  Olive Oil will burn easily, you do not want this too hot.  I set my electric burner to 5.  It takes about 10 minutes for the garlic to infuse the oil.

Now, I was lucky enough to find true Vidalia Onions recently.  they are sweet as is, and when gently sautéed, they get even sweeter.  If I used a “standard” onion, or a red onion as I prefer, I would have sautéed the onions for as long as 40 minutes to caramelize them.  With the sweet Vidalias, there is no need to sweeten them up.

The onions and the peppers are a bit more dense than the peas and mushrooms.  It would take a bit more time to get them heated throughout than the peas and mushrooms.  So I put them in first and flipped them around to get them coated with the oil for only about 5 minutes…

Then I added the snow peas and the mushrooms and continued to flip and coat for another 5 minutes.

Gentle heat and a short cooking time, and they have a great snap to them.  Do not over cook, or they get mushy soft.

No seasonings, didn’t need to add any extra tastes… just the veggies in oil… and the verdict was…

WOW, did this all work well together.  Some night soon, Jackie and I will just dive into a big bowl of this as a main course.  Snappy al dente texture, different vegetable tastes, plenty of flavor from the garlic oil.  I watched everyone eat, and this was the dish that disappeared from everyones plate first.

It was an accident and a rush to compensate for a shopping mistake.

What a lucky accident!  No one knew I was making it up as I went along.

Dave here from MY YEAR ON THE GRILLWhat a shock … I CAN COOK THAT! Anyone can!!! And anyone can make this winner…

Martha

Yep, awesome! I very often make a sauteed veggie combo like this, it’s a favorite here. Many times for me personally it’s my main course and a delicious one at that 🙂

Velva

This was a great veggie flavor and texture combination. Don’t you love it, when it all comes together so nicely.

I woudl easily eat this as a main dish over rice-yum.

Min

I love gently cooked vegetables…with just a little good salt! (for me, I’d cook the onion first so it cooked a bit more) Looks great.

Oh, I just posted a Tilapia recipe that you’d love, and it was originally for Mahi Mahi!