From the archives: A simple side dish in Christmas colors

If you’re still looking for Christmassy sides, consider this throwback recipe for Holiday Peas and Mushrooms.

Not only is this dish super simple and relatively inexpensive, but it naturally comes in Christmas colors: green peas, bright red pimientos and white button mushrooms.

Everything’s cooked on the stove top in one dish, and it all comes together quickly.

Jesse Tinsley, Adriana Janovich - The Spokesman-Review

The recipe is vintage Dorothy Dean. It comes from a 1965 holiday-themed leaflet.

Dorothy Dean was the pseudonym for food editors who headed The Spokesman-Review’s Homemakers Service. For nearly 50 years, the department mailed monthly recipes to subscribers’ homes, ran a telephone hotline, and provided columns, recipes and stories for the newspaper. In the early days, Dorothy Dean also offered weekly cooking matinees. The service was launched in 1935 and discontinued in 1983.

Holiday Peas and Mushrooms

From Dorothy Dean Homemakers Service and The Spokesman-Review archives, 1965

1/4 pound fresh mushrooms

3 tablespoons butter

1 (20-ounce) packages frozen peas

1/4 cup water (see note)

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon sugar

1 (2-ounce) jar chopped pimiento

Slice mushrooms; cook in butter until golden. Add remaining ingredients. Cover; simmer until tender, 8 to 10 minutes.

Yield: 6 servings

Note: Next time I make this dish, I’m going to leave out the 1/4 cup water. There was enough moisture in the dish from the butter and the peas, once they thawed.