Grandma Sue's Quick Pea Salad Recipe has it all

My friend, Dustin's Grandma, Sue recommends this fast and yummy pea salad

Image: Recipes Recommended/Lisa Schattenkirk

This blog was inspired by collecting handwritten recipes, usually from friends and family. It's a tradition in many families for parents to pass along recipes to their children and also teach them how to cook and feed their families. My mom was teaching me throughout her whole life. Growing up, I always assumed that she wrote all of the recipes she made for us. When I got older and thought back on it, I quickly realized that my mom collected recipes from all over the place. Nowadays, if I see a recipe on the back of a box or in a magazine that I really want to try, I'll write it down in one of my recipe notebooks. I think the following recipe may be just like that.

Grandma Sue

Image: Recipes Recommended/Dustin Snyder

I have a good friend, Dustin, and when I told him about our new blog and how we are making recommended recipes and sharing our thoughts, he was happy to ask his grandma, Sue, for her Pea Salad recipe. She married her husband six months after meeting him on a blind date when she was 16, then traveled around while he was in the Navy. Eventually, she and her husband settled down on Vashon Island, Washington, to start a family. Dustin recalls having this salad at all big family gatherings and holidays. Grandma Sue was married for 49 years and cooked every meal in the house except breakfast for Dustin's Grandpa. If this recipe is the one that stood out, we're happy to make it!

Of the ingredients that don't typically jump to the front of the line when I'm developing recipes, seasoned salts are one. Let's be clear, there is nothing wrong with using them, and I don't want to come off as snobby by recommending making your own dry spice blends. You just don't have as much control over what the blends are made of and they may contain added artificial colors. Additionally, seasoned salts and other blends tend to be old and may have been on your grocery store's shelf for much longer than you would think. Here's a recipe to make your own seasoned salt:

That being said, a bunch of recipes from my parents' generation and earlier aren't what they are today. My mother and father were both Baby Boomers and grew up eating more food from cans than I did. They also saw the advent of convenience cooking like TV dinners. It was a different time, and it's always a good idea to keep that in mind when you're reviewing a new recipe. Rest assured, I do draw a line and will never share a recipe starting with boxed rice or pasta requiring a helper.

Pea Salad that has it all

Dustin texted me a picture of the recipe given to him by Sue. I love handwritten recipes and like to think that she's had it for many years; the paper stained by past meals made following this recipe like many of my own cookbooks. I am quickly realizing that handwritten recipes are often in shorthand, for the person who wrote it down. This pea salad recipe needed a little bit of cleaning up as the ingredient amounts and steps were lacking. I was immediately curious about exactly how much 5 bacon was, and also I knew I was going to convert the dried herbs amounts to fresh, which is typically 3 to 1 fresh to dry. And finally, I knew that 1/8 cup of sliced green onion was far too little, so I upped that amount to twice that.

Image: Recipes Recommended/Lisa Schattenkirk

Image: Recipes Recommended/Dustin Snyder

Here is how we cleaned it up:

So how was it?

I had tempered expectations, which wasn't fair. I looked at the amount of salt and was nervous that the herb's flavor would be completely lost, but I was wrong. Finishing the salad with crumbled bacon reminded me of salad bars -- don't let Lisa get started talking about how much she loves salad bars and any restaurant that still has them. There was a lot of texture, crunchy water chestnuts and bacon, creaminess from the dressing, and the peas being the undeniable star. Usually, peas taste muddy and mealy to me. Not here. They were bright and complemented the other components amazingly well. The seasoning was a little salty, but nowhere near what I was fearing. I think we honored the original recipe with the addition of fresh herbs and we'd be happy to make this again. It would be perfect for a picnic or, as Dustin's family enjoyed it, during holidays.

I love how simple this recipe is. Lisa asked her mom if she had any pea salad recipes, so we could compare them, and Kim, Lisa's mom, told her that she thought it was a pretty common recipe, which may have been included on the back of a frozen bag of peas or maybe a jar of mayonnaise. Be that as it may, it stuck with Sue, and she wrote it down. Dustin has fond memories, and now I'm here writing about my experience with it. Regardless of its origin, I'm happy to have been a part of its history.