I hope your summer is off to a glorious start. Mine has been a bit wobbly, between finishing our last year of elementary school and preparing to send a 10-year-old to sleepaway camp. My eldest, it seems, is a young adult now? (When did that happen.) I also went on a short and delightful trip to the Berkshires, which was lovely, but it’s always a little jarring to return from vacation to a refrigerator that is a completely blank slate. So, my freezer-fridge-pantry project for the summer is in full swing. This means a mix of easy, throw-together meals and some more ambitious cooking, when I can find the time.

This dish definitely falls into the former category. Peas in the pod have always been a harbinger of summer for me, whether I was buying them for a side dish in the pod, or buying them shelled for pasta or a salad. When I see them at the market, the same way I think of asparagus in the spring and tomatoes in the late summer, I have to buy a lot of them. This recipe is an almost aggressively simple way to enjoy them right in their pod, in the brief window they’re available.

You’ll cook them in a screaming hot skillet for just a few minutes, until the pods blister and sweeten, and the peas inside steam to a perfect tender-crispness. Then you’ll season them with flaky sea salt and a generous amount of lemon juice. While I love the sweet-and-savory effect of a few spoonfuls of honey-roasted peas, I find this dish needs absolutely nothing more to be fantastic. They’re a perfect side dish, but I also love them as a light snack while I cook.

I hope you try them soon!