The June Garden 2012 and Black-Eyed Pea BBQ

The garden is off to a solid start. The summer squash, zucchinis, and one eggplant bush are flowering. One of the tomatoes has two green starter fruits.

So far, only one of the pepper plants has been attacked by wildlife. We unleashed enough garden fencing to cover the perimeter of the main garden plot. It stands maybe one foot off the ground. I was thinking chicken wire might do the trick but this fence was already hiding in the garage. We figured: why not? Hopefully it works.

While waiting for the veggies to grow, the supermarket still has to serve as the main veggie provider. The last time we were in Michigan, Meijer had a sale on peppers and mushrooms. The man went a little overboard: three bell peppers (yellow, orange, and red), two cartons of baby bella mushrooms, and a six-pack of portobellos. The caps were grilled up and eaten like burgers on buns with cheese and ketchup. For the rest, there was stir fry.

We had the wedding shower a few weeks ago, and one of the gifts was a set of prep bowls. I was thinking they'd work perfect for my one-serving of breakfast cereal in the morning. The man had more grandiose ideas. I got home from work to the peppers and mushrooms, plus carrots, all chopped and waiting in a few of the prep bowls and the rice already done in the cooker. I felt like I was on the cast of Americas Test Kitchen as I dumped the veggies into our clearanced-out giant Emeril saute skillet.

First, I stir fried the mushrooms separate so they could stay on the flames long enough to caramelize.

While the veggies fried, I got to thinking that they needed a little something extra, so I added a can of black-eyes peas. I added a bit of teryaki to start, but I've done so much with teryaki stir fry, I just didn't want to same old, same old. For good measure, I plopped in a fair amount of barbeque sauce. It left the veggies sweet but tasting like themselves and gave them some sauce that would add pep to the rice.

It was my first forray into black-eyed pea territory. I quite liked them. They tasted like a hybrid between a black bean and a chickpea. Come to think of it, they probably are. The meal was quite tasty at the dinner table but really didn't keep well for lunch the next day.