Week 43 : Pea Soup

10 cups low sodium chicken broth

2 lbs split dried peas

1 medium onion, diced

4 carrots, diced

2 celery stalks, diced

 1 red bed pepper, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 tea dried thyme

2 dried bay leaves

2 small ham hocks

Boil chicken broth over stove top.  Add chicken broth and remaining ingredients to Crock Pot.  Cook on LOW for about 6 hours, or until peas are tender.  Remove bay leaves and ham bones from soup, cut meat from bone and dice.  Stir soup with a wooden spoon or potato masher in order to further mash peas.  Return ham to pot.

There are two things you might be thinking here.  One- that pic does not look good!  Well folks, it's pea soup.  Remember they used it in a horror movie as demon vomit once?  It's not gonna look pretty.  Two- we already did pea soup.  Yes, we did.  But, it was a vegan recipe and this tastes much better.  Plus, I had a ton of ham left over from last week's recipe and I had to do something with it quick.  So, there you go.

I really have no complaints or tips for this recipe.  I cut most of the ham off the bone prior to cooking this and just placed a near empty bone in the pot.  Then I just diced up the leftovers I had and put in what I felt was enough.  I also used the big, real whole carrots.  It would be fine to use the baby carrots (obviously more than four) but I like carrots to be big and chunky in soup. 

Growing up, pea soup was always one of my favorites that Mom made.  Not quite sure why I chose this recipe instead of hers (even though it still tasted really good), but the red bell pepper sounded like it would give an extra kick.  I think in the future I might try a mix of the two recipes.  Mom's recipe calls for water instead of broth.  1/2 tea marjoram and 2 T parsley instead of garlic, thyme and bay leaves.  And leave out the bell pepper.  I was thinking keeping the broth, use marjoram and parsley, and add the red bell pepper.  Cook the same on LOW or over the stove for about an hour.  (Just be sure that if you cook over the stove  you soak the dried peas overnight to soften them up.) 

This recipe was found in the Oct 2011 issue of Everyday Food: Emeril's Slow-Cooker Split-Pea Soup