Stewed Peas

Having prepared the peas as above, put them into a stew-pan without any water. Mix among them plenty of bits of nice fresh butter, sufficient to cook them. Let them stew slowly in the butter till they are quite soft, stirring them up from the bottom frequently. Drain and dish them. They will be found very fine - better than if boiled in water. Peas should not be stewed this way, except in places where plenty of good fresh butter is to be easily obtained.

Green Peas

The largest and finest peas are what the English call marrowfat. The sugar pea is next. All green peas for boiling should be young and tender, but not so young as to be tasteless or insipid. As a general rule, nearly every article of food is best when it has just attained its full growth and ripeness; after that period the older it is the worse. Peas, so old as to be hard and yellow, are unfit to eat. In some ultra economical houses, good peas are things unknown. They are not bought in spring or early summer while young and fresh, but are never thought cheap enough till they become hard and yellow. Afterwards, when they reach the cheap state, a quantity are bought low, and put into jars not to be touched till next spring, when they are boiled, (with great difficulty, for they never become soft,) and attempted to be passed off "as this year's fresh peas" - and by the time the family have gotten through with them, "this year's young peas" have become old. Do not believe (for it is untrue,) that any eatable can be kept in all its genuine freshness and original flavor, by merely secluding them entirely from air. They will not spoil or decompose if skillfully managed; but they have not exactly their natural taste and consistence. It is better for those who never make pickles or preserves, to wait for fresh vegetables or fruit, till they are actually in market - or, if put up in jars, to add something more than parboiling and seclusion from the air. Vinegar, salt, sugar, spice and alcohol, will be found the grand and universal articles for securing the goodness of nearly all eatables. Without some of these along with them, things that have not spoiled while secluded from air, will surely spoil almost as soon as the jars are opened, and the external air admitted to them.

Green Or String Beans

Take young and tender beans, the seeds just forming in the pods. Take off the string with a knife, leaving no bits of string adhering to the beans, either at top or bottom. Do not split them. Cut each bean into three pieces, not more, and as you cut them throw them into a pan of cold water, kept beside you for the purpose. The old-fashioned way is now obsolete of cutting them into dice or diamonds, or of splitting them. The more they are cut up (beside the trouble and time wasted,) the more the water gets through them when cooking; the more tasteless they become, and the more difficult they are to drain. We have never met with beans that, when cut small, had not a puddle of greasy water in the bottom of the dish, and sometimes the water was all through the dish, and the beans floating in it. Shame on such bean-cooking! When the beans are all ready for the pot, throw them into boiling water very slightly salted, and they will generally be done in half an hour after they have come to a boil. Transfer them to a sieve; and press, and drain them well, till no water is left about them. Then put them into a deep dish, mix them with fresh butter, and dredge them with black pepper.