It’s a good thing I was born in the Deep South, because I really hate cold weather. I’m happy to read about four seasons, and occasionally I love to bundle properly and crunch snow under boot at a ski resort, but after that I’m good. And snow is the only thing that makes cold weather palatable.
Without snow we just have bone-chilling cold. And such weather makes me think of comforting things to warm me. Inside...like soup. So since it is January, and there will be more pipes to drip, I decided to hunker down and make soup. This is Part One of an ongoing series on this website featuring easy soups. (I only do easy. The hard stuff is for Martha and Ina)
This split pea soup came to mind first. I love split pea soup because it is easy and quick. Four hours for simmering annoys me. One of the best and most helpful things anyone has ever told me on The Food Show is that Honey Baked Ham sells frozen ham bones with almost a pound of ham still there. The first one I bought was $8. The one I got for this soup three years later was $12, Still a deal.
Because I rely on nature to flavor itself, this recipe is almost embarrassingly simple.
1 ham bone...ham stock
1 pkg split peas
3 cloves garlic
1/2 c. chopped onion
1/3 red bell pepper
2 stalks celery
2 carrots
2 handfuls fresh spinach chopped
1) Place the bone ia a pot of water after trimming all the excess meat from it.
2) Smash the garlic cloves
3) Chop celery, onions, and bell pepper and add to a separate pot along with the garlic. Chop carrots and spinach and add to the pot with the butter. Stir on high heat until the butter is gone, then spoon some of the ham stock continually into the pot until all vegetables are translucent. (Except the carrots, which will finish cooking with the peas.)
4) If the ham stock is clearly a stock, remove from heat and empty the pot of stock. Turn the bone over, fill the pot again with water and make more stock.
5) Rinse the peas and spoon them into this mix and stir together with the vegetables for a few minutes. Cover it all with the ham stock plus an inch or two over the vegetables, bring it to a boil and then down to low. Check it every half hour and add more stock as needed. When the peas are soft turn it off and wait for it to cool before pureeing.
Serve after chopping a bit of the ham to add to the soup.
