Harvest Mondays: Last Year's Purple Hull Pinkeye Peas from My Garden (Summer on a Plate)

 

What are Purple Hull Pinkeye Peas:

Purple Hull Pinkeye Peas are a variety of cowpea.  They look similar to Blackeyed Peas but in my opinion, are wayyyyy more delicious!  For the non-southern pallet, if I had to describe their flavor, they are a combo of English sweet peas and Blackeyes because they are creamy like English sweet peas.  

Trust me when I tell you they are delicious, easy to grow, and can grow in baking hot heat in poor soil.  Purple Hull Peas are like the low maintenance sister of your everyday peas.  )They do not need a trellis.)  Even a small patch of peas can generate a good amount of peas.  In my small, zone 6B, central Missouri garden, I grew no more than 10-12 plants last year in a small section of a raised bed crammed in beside a large tomatillo plant.  I still managed to make out with a gallon of peas for my freezer!

Like English sweet peas, these peas are shelled and you eat the peas inside the pods.  (Don't eat the pods.)  Unlike English sweet peas, the pods are long and often you get 12-15 peas in a single pod.  The pods grow from the tops of the plants like pony tails so are easy to see but they also can drape down underneath.  Their purple color makes them easy to spot.  The plants will be loaded with pods.  The purple color blushes through the pods as the peas fill the pods and they are ready to pick.  Often you get a second "rush" of peas late in the garden season so if the plants are still green, let them keep growing!

Once ready for harvest, "shelling peas" is a pretty mindless task.  Shelling peas is a right of summer for my family.  I grew up shelling Florida conch peas with  my mom and granny in Florida sitting around the living room with the AC window unit blaring (or not) with a dishpan for shelled peas in our laps and paper sacks for the pods.  Oh, and running your hands through a dishpan of cool firm peas is just on another level!  I don't know how to explain it.  They are such a gift because you can't buy these peas in stores.  Breathing in the heady aroma of fresh peas with the hot summer sun outside and the promise of those delicious peas ladled over a bed of white rice is pure joy.  Mmmmm.  Honey - You got to try them!  We are talking Summer on a Plate!

These peas are close enough to conchs that I once gifted a packet of them to my mom who lives in central Florida. She has baking hot heat and sandy hot soil, but the pinkeye peas cranked out some serious peas!   To this day, she saves some pinkeye peas after her harvests each summer for dried/seeds to plant in the spring.  NOTE:  You can save the dried peas (let some pods dry out for this) for planting in next year's garden.

Where in the world do you buy Purple Hull Pinkeye Peas?

I bought my peas online at Baker Creek.  Baker Creek has free shipping with no minimum order so go ahead and get yourself a packet!  You will be so glad you did!

Here is the photo from the Baker Creek website.  Get them  HERE!:

How to preserve Purple Hull Pinkeye Peas?

I freeze them.

1.    Shell all of the peas.  You do that by snapping the ends off and  prying open the pod, running your finger down to open the seam freeing the peas from the pod into your bowl/dish pan.  Toss the empty pods out for the chickens or the compost.

2.    If you have any skinny pods that haven't fully formed peas, snap the ends off and toss those ends in the compost/chicken bowl, then snap those skinny pods ("snaps") like for green beans.  It is tradition to cook peas with a few "snaps".  See my pics.

(If you pick small batches of these peas from your garden, go ahead and shell them, saving the peas in a zip baggy in the fridge for when you have enough to cook.)

2.    Wash the peas twice, dumping the dirty water/peas through a colander to rinse.

3.    Bring a large pot of water to a boil for blanching the peas.

4.    Add the peas and bring the water back to a boil.  Boil 3-4 minutes.

6.    Drain the blanched peas and place them next in icy cold water.  This stops the cooking process immediately.  Drain again and spread them in a single layer on a baking sheet. 

7.    Freeze the peas overnight.   (This step is called "Flash Freezing".)

8.    Bag the frozen peas in a zip bag, expelling all of the air.  Freeze for up to a year.

My pot of peas blanching:

"Flash Freezing" peas and snaps before bagging them up.

Bagged up for the freezer:

How to cook frozen Purple Hull Pinkeye Peas?

1.    Place as many peas as you want in a pot and cover the peas about 1 inch with water.

2.    Add 1 teaspoon chicken bullion, bacon grease or 1 Tablespoon butter to the pot.  I also added a drizzle of olive oil to my peas.

3.    Salt and pepper.  (I cooked mine for about an hour first and then tasted to see how much salt was needed since the chicken bullion was already salty.  They still needed some additional salt though.)

4.    Cook/simmer (with a lid) on low/medium 1.5-2 hours, or until the peas are soft, stirring occasionally.

5.    You may have to add more water.  You want the peas to remain covered in water while cooking.

Yesterday, my hubby fried a small batch of Canadian Walleye for our supper.  Since fishing in Canada for him is a summer thing, I thought it perfectly appropriate to also make me a pot of peas.

The delicious aroma of those peas cooking as Doug fried fish in the garage while we watched the news of an approaching snowstorm for Monday was the perfect way to end the weekend.  Denial at it's best that winter is still wintering around here!

Order yourself some Purple Hull Pinkeye Seeds so you can enjoy some next summer (or WINTER lol).  

(I am not connected to Baker Creek (Rare Seeds.com) and do not receive any incentive(s) for this post - but their free shipping and large selection of awesome seeds keeps me coming back!)

This post has been shared at Happy Acres Blog (Harvest Mondays post for 2.17.25) - HERE

Enjoy!

Gina