Organic Yellow Peas

Yellow peas are a helpful addition to organic rotations because they pull enough nitrogen from the atmosphere for themselves to grow, and also leave extra nitrogen for crops in the following year.  This year’s batch of yellow peas comes to us from Grant Rigby of Rigby Orchards (who also grows the incredible black lentils for us as well).

Last year we were messing around with a batch of whole yellow peas, and made a wonderful discovery.  If we send the peas through our oat dehuller, the outer skins peel off, and low and behold, the peas fall apart into two neat pieces – ta daa – split peas!  I had assumed that it was a complicated mechanical process to carefully shear each pea in half, but there is a natural break in the peas that allows them to easily break into two.  These split peas cook much quicker, and make split pea soup in a jiffy!

 

 

Although i’m always on the look-out for Manitoba grown chickpeas, chickpeas are much more difficult to grow in this part of the world (they like conditions that are a bit hotter and  bit dryer than what we usually experience).  Conventional (non-organic) farmers will usually spray chickpeas with fungicides several times in a growing season, and organic farmers struggle to keep their crop free of disease.  So yellow peas it is!  It takes a bit of getting used to the different flavour (they taste more like fresh peas, whereas chickpeas are more neutral), but once you get over the mind block, they work in all the same ways, and now I reach for yellow peas instead of chickpeas in all my curries and chickpea types of recipes 🙂

 

Our favourite yellow pea hummus recipe:

Directions:

Cover 1 cup peas with water and soak overnight, then simmer for 2 hours or until soft.  A pressure cooker or instant pot for 40 minutes will also do the trick.

Blend together:

Cooked yellow peas

1/2 cup lemon juice

1/4 cup tahini

2 tbsp olive or sunflower oil

3 cloves garlic

Dash of salt, pepper & paprika

 

That’s it that’s all!  Enjoy with veggies, crackers, or added to sandwiches.