Fun Food Friday- Split Pea Soup

It's still freezing over here (right now as I look out my window there's times all I can see is white swirling around, very glad I don't have anywhere to go), which means I'm still in a soup mood. :)  So this week I have for you Split Pea Soup.  Now I have to make a confession, for the first 22 years of my life I "hated" Split Pea Soup.  I thought it was the most disgusting soup there was.  My roommate in college would bring it frozen from home and I gave her such a hard time about what a disgusting thing that was that she was putting in our freezer.  And then one day when I was 22 I was out to dinner with my family at this place that did family style dinners and the soup that night was Split Pea Soup.  I voiced my disgust at the choice and then my dad asked me if I had ever in fact tried Split Pea Soup.  I thought about it and realized I actually had never even tried it, all my disgust for it was because of it's appearance :).  So he made me try it and what I discovered is despite the awful green look to the soup, it's absolutely delicious!  Now it's one of my favorite soups!  And the great thing is when I make a nice big pot of Split Pea Soup I get the whole thing to myself because my husband is like what I used to be, unwilling to even try it because of the looks. :)  So if you can get past the nasty green looks of this soup (yeah, not the greatest for a food blog where you take pictures of it but trust me, it tastes amazing), try this one out.  It's a great one to make after Christmas because it requires a ham bone and most people have ham at Christmas.  If you don't feel like making it right away, you can always freeze the ham bone until you're ready to use it.  And if you don't have a ham bone I think you can buy a ham hock or just throw some diced ham in at the end.  So if you're stuck in this horrible cold weather that doesn't seem to want to end, try warming up with some Split Pea Soup!

Ingredients: Dried Green Split Peas, Onion, Carrots, Ham Bone, Chicken Broth

(You can also put in celery but when I went to get my celery out of the refrigerator I realized I didn't have any in there :))

 

You need to rinse the peas so pour 2 cups into a strainer...

And rinse with water.  You want to move the peas around to make sure there's nothing in with the peas.

Pour the rinsed peas into a big pot...

And cover with 2 cups of water.  Let them soak for an hour

Then add your ham bone

2 cups of chicken broth and 2 more cups of water

Bring it to a boil

Then cover and let it simmer for an hour

 

Take out the ham bone

 

And cut the meat off the bone and dice into small pieces

Once the bone is out mash up the peas.  If the soup is a little thick (like mine is here) just add a little water.

Add the onions...

And carrots...

And the diced ham.  Let it cook for 20 more minutes.

Then just pour it in a bowl and go enjoy!

 

This soup freezes really well so it works great to put it in Dutch Tupperware (aka cool whip containers :))

Cover, label and put it in the freezer so that the next freezing cold day you can pull it out, heat in the microwave and enjoy a bowl of soup

Looks like I won't be getting the whole pot of soup to myself anymore :)

Split Pea Soup
2 cups dried split pea
4 cups water
2 cups chicken broth
1/2 cup onions, diced
1 cup carrots, diced
Ham Bone

Rinse the peas.  Pour into a large pot and cover with 2 cups of water.  Soak for 1 hour.  Add 2 cups of water and 2 cups of broth and the ham bone.  Bring to boil, turn down heat and simmer for 1 hour.  Remove the ham bone, cut the meat off the bone and dice.  Mash up the peas (if soup is too thick add some water).  Return the ham to the soup and add carrots and onions.  Heat for 20 more minutes.