Dog walk and dinner

We spent yesterday evening at Joe and Lisa's.  Family barbie for Joe's birthday.  Great evening.  My Joe was there but Alex, Claire and The Woo's Joe were missed.  There wasn't even an inkling of a family 'Bohemian Rhapsody'!

Lazy day today.  Up late and a huge lunchtime brekkie with all the trimmings then a lovely long dog walk with The Woo in some gorgeous sunshine.  All the dogs enjoyed it; particularly our messy partners in crime - Freya and Bobby.

Home then for a very chilled out afternoon of reading and snoozing...well The Woo was doing the reading and I was most definitely in snooze mode.  I think yesterday's 4.45am alarm call, a long day in the bakery and then an exceptionally late night followed by a moonlit walk home over the fields just about did me in!

Supper this evening is some lamb steaks which I have marinated in garlic, rosemary and olive oil.  With these we are having some lovely new potatoes from the garden; Arthur's garden - not mine - and easy mushy peas.

The peas are so easy to do and we have them quite a lot with all sorts of dishes.  I added a small packet of frozen petit pois to a pan of boiling salted water and cooked them, covered, for a few minutes only.  In the pan was a clove of garlic which was peeled and halved.  The peas need to be a touch over the 'just done' stage.  I drained therm whilst hot, removed the garlic as this is for background flavour only and then added some chopped mint from the garden (mine this time).  The mint was allowed to warm up in the hot peas for a minute or so and then the whole lot was roughly mashed using a potato masher. You don't need to go mad with this.  We're after a rough chop rather than a puree and a few whole peas among the well mashed and those in between are just fine.

To this was added a good lug of decent olive oil which was stirred through.  I added a little sea salt and black pepper.  Not much salt as there was a fair bit in the cooking water.  The mushy peas were left to cool until ready to serve when I warmed them through; stirring occasionally to prevent them sticking to the bottom.  You want them warm and not lip burningly hot as this seems to help the flavour.

This is also good with a little onion or shallot.  I sometimes lightly soften these in a little butter in a pan and add them to the peas after the mashing stage.  All mixed together they make a delicious variant.