Purple Hulll Peas

I live in suburbia in a two-story white house that's a stone's throw away from our neighbors. There is a "lake" complete with fountains and I can walk to two different parks. I have a two car garage completely packed with cars, toys, and tools. We have very good schools and manicured yards.

But I love reading farm blogs. Bring on the chickens and goats! Produce has so much more flavor coming straight out of the garden.

I get fresh tomatoes, corn, and peppers from my dad and we have a small garden, compost bin, and rain barrel at the house. But how cool would it be have fresh eggs every morning. We are at the "legal limit" (3) of pets in our area but even if we weren't there are no chickens allowed.

I am smitten with these blogs right now:

The Prairie Homestead - a farm in Wyoming complete with goats, chickens, cows, ducks, pigs, ect. ect. A real live farm!

and Old World Garden Farms -  a farm in Ohio where they are slowly but surely building their homestead with chicken, bees, grapevines, a huge garden, and too many pergolas to count. 

My Dad has always had a garden and cooks like it. We just cooked up a big pot of his purple hull peas and it seems like the perfect farm recipe. 

Purple Hull Peas

Serves 6

• 1 1/2 pounds of fresh purple hull peas, shelled and cleaned
• 1 ham bone, complete with ham scraps
• salt, pepper, thyme
• 3 cloves minced garlic

Place peas and ham bone in a large pot with enough water to cover the peas by an inch.  Add salt, pepper, thyme, and garlic to taste.  Bring to a boil then reduce to a simmer for 45 minute to an hour.  Peas should be soft but not mushy.  Remove from heat.  Remove the ham bone and pick off any ham scraps. Add the scraps to the peas and toss the bone.

Serve warm and refrigerate or freeze any leftovers. The leftovers will have a thick coat of fat at the top, just scrape off or heat up and it will go away.