Grandma’s new potatoes and peas

My last post got me waxing poetic about all things nostalgic.  I do this quite often and will go through a couple of family cookbooks or old recipe tins for inspiration and rejuvenation!

Didn’t everyone’s grandmother make this most anticipated dish of the early summer?  I know all of ours did.  And I know that no one ever wrote the recipe down for the white sauce.  I remember watching my grandma and mom just throw this together from memory, usually for a Sunday dinner.

Here goes my attempt at writing it down for posterity!

New Potatoes and Peas

Scrub potatoes and boil until done.  Drain.

Boil peas until just tender.  Drain.

Make white sauce.

1. Melt two tablespoons of butter (or use bacon grease if you have it.  I remember that Grandma always had a reserve of bacon grease in a canister right on the stove top.)
2. Add two tablespoons of of flour and whisk together.  Let flour bubble so you will not be left with a flour taste.
3. Slowly add enough milk to make a sauce. Keep whisking.  (This sauce can be stretched by adding more milk.)
4. Add 1/2 T. sugar, 1/4 t. salt and a bit of pepper

Combine peas, potatoes, and white sauce and serve immediately.

I highly recommend this dish as soon as you can get new potatoes and fresh peas!These new potatoes came from the farmers’  market, but we just dug a five gallon bucket full of our own Yukon Gold, Fingerling, and Sangre potatoes.  No peas from the garden for us; we will just have to rely on area farmers for that!

For other nostalgic posts about my grandmothers, click on the following links:

Grandma’s Fruitcake

Grandmother’s Dilled Green Tomatoes

Grandmother’s Green Tomato Relish

Grandma’s Pea Salad

Grandma’s Mashed Potatoes

Grandmother’s Everlasting Bread

Grandmother’s Potato Salad

Grandmother’s “President Johnson’s Chili Con Carne”

Clothesline Taffy

Grammy’s Banana Fritters

Great Grandma’s Sour Cream Cocoa Cake

Grammy’s Grape Pudding

Great Grandma’s Wild Grape Jelly

Grandmother’s Ice Cream

I hope grandmothers, grandmas, and every single grammy and gran are still out there passing down recipes!  (I sometimes feel they are all still looking over my shoulder as I cook and blog, still giving me guidance and inspiration.)