Split Pea Soup

We found split peas!

We made our traditional Sinterklaus split pea soup for the missionaries! We celebrated with our district at our house with stories of Sinterklaus. Dave and AI wrote poems for each of the missionaries. It was a fun couple hours as that was all they had complete with treats for each one. It was super fun!

I have a specific recipe I use from a book at home but this was a pretty good one from Cooking Classic.

Split Pea Soup

Makes about 9 cups.

Servings: 6

Prep15minutes minutes

Cook1hour hour 45minutes minutes

Ingredients

• 1 Tbsp olive oil

• 1 1/2 cups chopped yellow onion (1 medium)

• 1 1/4 cups chopped celery (about 3 ribs)

• 1 tsp minced garlic (1 clove)

• 4 cups unsalted chicken broth (you have to use liquid broth in a carton here if you want to make sure to leave out the MSG)

• 4 cups water

• 1 (16 oz) bag dried split peas, picked over and rinsed (Found at a local grainery store)

• 2 bay leaves (freshly dried from Pili Rodriguez’s tree)

• 1 1/2 tsp chopped fresh thyme, or 1/2 tsp dried (used just the dried)

• Salt and freshly ground black pepper

• 1 1/2 lb meaty ham bone or ham shanks (I used a hamhock from a local market-come to find out it was super strong and super salty. The second batch I left out the salt and ham hock and then mixed the two together to calm the satltiness. I also temporarily added some raw potatoes to soak up some of the salt, which also helped.)

• 1 cup chopped carrots

• Chopped fresh parsley, for garnish (optional) (didn’t use)

Instructions

• Heat olive oil in a large pot over medium-high heat. Add onion and celery and saute 3 minutes. Add garlic and saute 1 minute longer.

• Pour in chicken broth and water. Add split peas, bay leaves and thyme. Season lightly with salt and with pepper to taste (I like to wait to add more salt until the end to see how salty the ham has made the soup).

• Nestle ham bone into soup mixture. Bring mixture to a boil, then reduce to low. Cover and let simmer, stirring occasionally until peas and ham are tender, about 60 - 80 minutes.

• Remove ham from soup, let rest 10 minutes then shred or dice meat portion into pieces, cover.

• Meanwhile add carrots* to soup. Cover soup and continue to simmer, stirring occasionally, until peas have mostly broken down, about 30 minutes longer**.

• Stir ham into soup, season with more salt as needed. Serve warm garnished with parsley if desired.