Saturday I channeled my inner chef and made just about the best split pea soup I've ever had...and that's saying something! I am a devotee of the split pea made by Andersen's. There is an actual restaurant/tourist stop just off of Hwy I-5 in California called Pea Soup Andersen's. I've stopped there many a time going north and south along this artery in my home state and I've nearly always chosen their pea soup as my meal. Once I added a nice steamed artichoke and was it good! I've never attempted to make my own split pea soup because frankly I didn't think I could do as well as Andersen's. I'm here to say that were there a split pea soup cookoff - like chili cookoffs - I think the recipe I did Saturday would be a contender!
This past Friday night I attended a dinner for the ladies of the church I attend and, following the many caloried desserts, we all went shopping at the pre-Christmas baazar. One of the items I purchased was a large mason jar full-to-the-top with the mixings for a big pot of split pea soup. Hmmm, I thought...why not give it a try? The jar had the cooking directions printed on a nice little card attached by ribbon that included both cooking in a pot on the stove and cooking via crockpot. I chose crockpot.
The jar contained equal parts yellow and green dried split peas, a small baggie of seasonings and two dried bay leaves. Feeling adventurous and giddy, I discarded the seasonings bag and opted to use my intuition and own cooking skills.
Here's the recipe as I did it for Green & Yellow Split Pea Soup:
1 jar green and yellow dried split peas [I don't really know how many, but they filled up a large size mason jar]
8 to 10 cups water [that's what the recipe card said, but I used 2 cups Organic, Free Range Chicken Broth, low sodium, and 6 cups of water]
For seasonings I used:
- 1 tbl salt
- 1 tsp black pepper
- 4 good sprinkles dried thyme
- 2 sprinkles of gumbo file
- 1 tsp minced garlic
- the two included bay leaves
Recipe also calls for smoked ham hocks...I used a package that was 2.35 pounds.
I put everything in the crockpot, put the temp on 'high' and stirred it about every 45 minutes or so for the first 4 hours. Then I turned the heat to 'low' for another hour. After that I took out the ham hocks and cut out the eatable meat, shredded it and added it back to the pot. By this time the peas had cooked so much that they had just about pureed themselves which was awesome. Just before serving I added 2 good pours [maybe shy of 1/4 cup] of my soy milk creamer. [I can't use milk products but the soy milk creamer was awesome...you could use real cream or half and half.]
While the soup was cooking I also had the bread machine going and baked up a loaf of wonderous raisin bread. Supper Saturday night was soup and bread and both the senior software engineering guy and I had seconds.
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