Pea Porridge Hot...

Pea Porridge cold, Pea porridge in the pot, 9 days old...

Did you know, there are literally millions of Pea soup varieties? Trust me, I looked! But only for research. Check it out for yourself on that Pinterest Link, but trust me, the page goes on and on. 

Dutch Pea Soup (Erwtensoep), English Spring Pea Soup, The "Hairy" Man's Pea soup 

(?SERIOUSLY does not sound appetizing!), Yellow Split pea with Sweet potatos and Kale,   

Swedish Yellow Pea Soup (Slow Cooker Ärtsoppa), Lucky Black-eyed pea soup...
You get the picture.

    

  Honestly? I have my own go-to Pea soup recipe and I don't care to really try anyone elses, no matter how good it might be... Yes, I am a pea soup snob.

I almost said "snot",  but then realized that is probably
not appropriate for a post about pea soup...

 

Omgosh  - ever done this? Yeah... me too

{GRIN}

oh don't worry - there's no cute dogs in this soup recipe, I promise

{Yeah, me too, Ryan, me too.}

I do love this soup though. It's versatile, and you can use what you have on hand to make it amazing. It really doesn't take much of anything to bring out the smokey flavor of the ham bits, and honestly while it seems like a soup this good should take a lot of work, it really is a easy to pull together.

You can cook it as long as you want too, making it a perfect Crock pot option while you're at work. I'll share with you the way I normally make it, and then I'll discuss some of the 'substitutes' you can use instead if you need to. 

I'm no vegan, gluten free eater, so unfortunately I can't help you there, but if you look at the link at the top of this post, I'm sure you'll find something that will satisfy your palate.

PEA SOUP RECIPE

16oz bag of dried split peas 

1 leftover ham bone, plus about 2 cups of chopped ham

1 tblspn Vegetable oil 

1 med onion chopped 

4 garlic cloves, chopped 

32 oz chicken broth, or stock

1 cup milk 

2-3 cups water (as needed)  

Salt & Pepper to taste.

16oz frozen carrots (or fresh carrots, doesn't much matter)

This soup is a thirsty variety. It seems like you are using a lot of liquid (almost 10 cups) but trust me, you will need it. Chicken broth enhances the flavor of the peas, so don't skimp and use water if you want a full bodied soup.

This box comes from Aldi, and it's only about $1.69 and has 8 cups of broth in it.

 

Heat oil in large stock pot. Add chopped ham and let render until the ham is nice and hot.

(If you don't have leftover ham and a ham bone, you can still get fabulous flavor using 3 strips of bacon and a ham steak. Use the bacon to add fat to the soup, and omit the vegetable oil. Bacon will be removed before serving. Ham steak should be added after the liquid, and halfway thru cooking, you will remove, shred, and return to the soup.)

Add onions and garlic and heat through until onions are translucent. 
Slowly pour in chicken stock, and scrape off the brown bits from the bottom of the pan.

 

 Stir around until all is incorporated. Let cook for about 5-10 minutes.
Add ham bone at this point. The bone will add flavor but is not overly necessary. As explained above, the same smokey flavor can be achieved with a few slices of bacon.

Add your carrots. If you use fresh sliced carrots, you will want to make sure you cook the soup long enough to soften the carrots to your liking. By using fresh frozen carrots, I speed up the cooking time to about an hour, or an hour and a half.

This is what the soup looks like after about 30 minutes of cooking. It's still pretty yellow/brown from the chicken stock and milk. At this point the peas will start to expand, and you will be able to tell how much water you need to add. Add about a half cup at a time, in case you don't need as much as is suggested in the recipe.

Cover and let simmer for another half hour.

At this point, if you used the bacon/ham steak instead of ham and a ham bone, go ahead and remove your bacon, which does not look good at this point anyway - feed it to the cute dog or throw it away. Remove your ham steak and begin to shred it apart. This should be an easy step, using 2 forks.
Return the shredded ham to the pot, and stir.

 After about an hour, to an hour and a half, this devine masterpiece will start to come together. The color has now started to look more like actual pea soup, and you can see that we've lost about an inch or so of liquid. Now is the time to add more milk or water, depending on your preference. Remember, just a 1/2 cup or so at a time, you don't want it to get too watery.

Ah pea soup. At last you are complete.

Remove your ham bone and give it a final stir. (ignore the hint of muffins in the background, I cheated and used a box mix for those - shhh don't tell anyone!)

Serve with Crackers or a good crusty bread.

 

 I have another small ham in my freezer, so I'll be doing a blog soon on how I get that ham to turn out amazing. It's so simple, you'll wonder why you leave Ham for the special holidays of the year, and have it more regularly.

For our family, it's great. I can get a 10lb, semi boneless ham for around $1.69 a pound.
I cook it up, have dinner, a bone for soup later, and sliced for sandwiches all week.
Deli ham is like $6 a pound! This is WAAAAAY cheaper!

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