Fresh From the Garden

Due to too much time spent doing destruction, construction and painting of walls, ceilings and trim, my garden this year has gotten a lot less attention than it deserves. The watering gets done...mostly...but the feeding hasn't happened as often as it should (we won't even talk about weeding 'kay?) and the cooler weather has slowed down the ripening of almost everything. I have found the occasional super size zucchini hiding out and looking like a dark green baseball bat. Fortunately those are Grandma L's favorites for making her famous zucchini casserole.

The rest of the zucchini is shared with friends and neighbors and enjoyed, grilled mostly, by Sweetie and me. Tomatoes are still green and hard so it might be awhile before the iconic lettuce, heirloom tomato and bacon sandwich that I wait all year to enjoy.

The sugar snap peas have been happy with the foggy mornings and cooler days...they keep putting out new flowers and cute pea pods.

Some that hid behind tomato leaves, sweet pea leaves or who knows what became large and eventually turned into seed pods for next year. Some of the pods became too tough to eat so I simply split the pod open and harvested the adorable fresh peas. Some were round and beautiful as pearls and others were so tightly packed together in the pod that they were almost square!

I suppose I should have eaten them by themselves to thoroughly enjoy the fresh pea experience, but both batches (so far) where I shelled the peas they have gone into veggie mixtures. The first time they added a nice note to a stir fry. Yesterday I added them to a new batch of the summer soup.

I enjoyed a serving today for lunch and the addition of the peas made it even more enjoyable than the last version.

If things continue on the way they have been we may end up with another harvest of fresh peas and perhaps just steam them and toss in a bit of butter. Mmmm.

Here is some nutritional information on peas:

The following nutrition information is for one serving of peas. That would be about one cup of peas, or 145 grams. This general information is for any variety of raw peas.

Macronutrients:
Water: 114.35 g
Calories: 117
Protein: 7.86 g
Carbohydrates: 20.97 g
Fiber: 7.4 g
Sugars: 8.22 g
Total Fat: 0.58 g
Saturated Fat: 0.103 g
Monounsaturated Fat: 0.0501 g
Polyunsaturated Fat: 0.271 g
Cholesterol: 0 mg

Micronutrients:
Calcium: 36 mg
Iron: 2.13 mg
Magnesium: 48 mg
Phosphorus: 157 mg
Potassium: 354 mg
Sodium: 7 mg
Zinc: 1.80 mg
Vitamin C: 58.0 mg
Thiamin: 0.386 mg
Riboflavin: 0.191 mg
Niacin: 3.030 mg
Pantothenic Acid: 0.151 mg
Vitamin B6: 0.245 mg
Vitamin B12: 0 mcg
Folate: 94 mcg
Vitamin A: 1109 IU
Vitamin E: 0.19 mg
Vitamin K: 36.0 mcg
Phytonutrients:
beta Carotene: 651 mcg
beta Cryptoxanthin: 0 mcg
Lycopene: 0 mcg
Lutein and Zeaxanthin: 3592 mcg

Source of Information:
USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference