Creamy Summer Pea Salad

Creamy cheese pieces, fresh vibrant peas, crunchy bacon.... I love this creamy summer pea salad. When I first saw this recipe I adored the colors white, yellow, grass green, light purple... its like a little rainbow. Okay rainbow is taking it a bit too far. But it really is a beautiful dish. 

Summer is a great time for salads and bbqs and picnics. All the of these seem to holler for sides like potato salad or macaroni salad. This creamy delightful recipe fits right in that list and is a nice pleasant trade for the one of those traditional standbys with half the chopping and half the amount of time. It contains mayo like most other potato and macaroni salads so you have to be careful about leaving it out and about, but it has wiggled its way into my summer dinner rotations and even my 5 yr old told me he liked it. 

This creamy Summer Pea Salad side dish recipe from Love Bakes Good Cakes, modified, feeds 2-4 people. 

Ingredients:
2 pieces of crunchy cooked bacon, chopped or crumbled
8 oz of frozen peas, defrosted and drained of excess water
1/4 cup of diced cheddar cheese (1 or 2 extra thick slices) 
1/4 cup diced mozzarella cheese (1 or 2 extra thick slices) 
2 small shallots, finely diced
1/4 cup mayo, reduced fat or whatever you have on hand
Salt and pepper to taste (at least 1/4 tsp each)

3 Step Directions:
1. Defrost the peas in warm water. I threw a small bag of peas in warm water and weighed out 8 oz - turned out to be 3/4ths of the bag. I put the rest in the fridge to use on a chef salad later in the week. 

2. While peas are defrosting bake/cook your bacon unless you are using leftovers from something else. 

3. Chop, measure, and drop everything else into a medium sized bowl and store in the fridge unless everything else is ready. Combine the peas as soon as they are defrosted. Stir in the cooked and cooled bacon. You don't want to melt the cheese. 

Cheers to all those great summer dinners with family and friends. Salad would taste great along side burgers, steaks, hot dogs, sandwiches, chips, and/or sliders of any kind.

Stephanie