The kitchen opens!

Hello! Welcome to Yum Yum Kitchen. What is "Yum Yum Kitchen," you ask? Well, when I was growing up, my parents would host dinner parties for their friends. The menu, carefully calligraphized by my talented sister, always showed our "restaurant" name as Yum Yum Kitchen.

Cooking is something that I enjoy doing. With the recent purchase of a wonderful chest freezer to store stocks and bags of bones and shells, I've decided to start a little blog to join in the wonderful world of ... me.

I'll use this blog to document what I'm cooking and what I'm trying out! I'm not a chef, and I know that. I cook primarily from recipes, even if I've never actually followed one to a T.

Recently, I was lucky enough to see Scott Peacock (executive chef at Watershed here in Decatur, GA and also a 2006 James Beard award winner) do a demonstration. I also purchased his cookbook, The Gift of Southern Cooking: Recipes and Revelations from Two Great American Cooks (and got it signed!). Probably one of the awesomest recipes in here, not that I have made many yet, is the Field Peas and Tomato salad.

Field peas are a big deal in the South. I have noticed the tons of pods and shelled peas for sale in the farmers market but not until recently did it really dawn on me that I can get black-eyed peas, lady peas, butter beans, etc. for pretty cheap in their frozen state. If you did not know, peas are one of the vegetables that are flash frozen immediately after they are picked, so their frozen product is actually more nutritious than their fresh state. It's true: I looked it up.

So anyhow, to create this awesomely simple field peas and tomato salad:

Ingredients:
- Fresh mayonnaise. You won't need more than a couple tablespoons for this salad.
- Field peas, at least three varieties. I like to use black-eyed peas, crowder peas, and butter beans.
- Tomatoes, preferably heirloom. It does make a difference.
- 1 clove garlic
- Boiled water

1. Boil field peas in salted water for about 8 minutes.
2. When field peas are cooked, drop them into a bowl of salted cold water to stop the cooking.
3. Wash and cut up tomatoes in rougly 1/2" or 3/4" cubes.
4. Peel and mince 1 clove of garlic, place in a bowl.
5. Add boiling water to the garlic. This cooks it slightly so it's not so sharp.
6. Spoon some mayo into another bowl, add some of the garlicky water to it to thin the mayo into a drizzle-able thickness.
7. Mix tomatoes and field peas in a serving bowl. Add s+p.
8. Serve, drizzling some mayo on each serving.

Note: as soon as you add s+p to the tomatoes, they will start to break down. So if you are waiting until later to eat, hold off on this step. I like to bring a bowl of tomatoes, a bowl of peas, the bowl of mayo, and a mixing bowl to the table to prepare this seconds before serving.

Anyhow, that's it for me today. I hope you will join me again in my foodie adventures!