The cold weather has found it's way to Dixie Land, and it's time for soups and stews. Post your soups, stews, and slow-cooker recipes if you have them. I don't think we've had a soup/stew thread before... there have been a few scattered posts and a thread dedicated to tomato soup that was posted a while ago.
Here is the split-pea soup I posted earlier today that worked itself out after an hour and a half sitting on the stove.
Ham and split-pea soup
1 pound green split peas
1 1/2 cups/one can of vegetable or chicken broth
5 cups of water
One carrot and onion, diced
One pound country or city ham, cubed.
Sautee the onions and carrots until the carrots are soft. Dump everything else into the soup pot and heat to boiling. Cut the heat down to medium and simmer uncovered until the peas are mostly puree'd and incorporated into the soup. I think topping it with some crumbled cooked bacon might be tasty.
Through 30 years of trial and error, here's my split pea and ham recipe. Sorry it's a little convoluted
Split Pea Soup updated
Filed under: Soup — lenahaugland @ 7:07 am
1969 Betty Crocker’s cookbook Split Pea Soup
(*my variations in parenthesis.) Easily doubled recipe – it freezes well.
INGREDIENTS
2 cups dried split peas (*one plastic bag is 2 cups).
2 quarts water (*that is 8 cups and I add chicken bouillon
to that 8 cups of water so it is chicken broth. Or just
start out with 8 cups of chicken broth)
1 lb smoked ham shank or ham hocks or 1 ham bone (*I start
with a real bone-in ham. There will be more than enough
ham for your soup, and the leftover extremely tender ham is
wonderful for sandwiches, etc.)
1 medium onion, finely chopped (about 1/2 cup) (*I use a
lot more onion and you don’t need to chop anything so
fine.)
1 cup finely chopped celery (*my celery usually is beyond
usable before I use it, so I normally skip it)
1 sprig parsley (*I use dried parsley)
1/4 teaspoon pepper
2 medium carrots, thinly sliced (*my very original Betty
Crocker recipe didn’t call for carrots – but my notes say I
always added 1-1/2 cup of sliced carrots). They will cook
down.
(* IMPORTANT * my little additions – a bit of chopped garlic in a jar, 1/4 tsp thyme, a bay leaf or two, and a generous pinch of
cayenne pepper.)
DIRECTIONS
In large saucepan or Dutch oven, heat peas and water (*bouillon) to
boiling; boil 2 minutes.
Remove from heat; cover and let stand 1 hour.
Add bone-in ham, onion, celery, parsley and pepper; heat to
boiling. (*add carrots and my additions – chopped garlic in a jar, 1/4 tsp thyme, a bay leaf or two, and a generous pinch of
cayenne pepper.)
Reduce heat; cover and simmer (*at least) 1-1/2 hours.
Remove ham and bone.
(*If you want a really creamy variation, use a hand blender in the pot before adding the ham back in. Or if you don’t have a hand blender, put the soup through a regular food processor or blender Personally, I like the un-creamy version best.)
Trim meat from bone and add to soup (*if you use a whole ham with bone, save out about 1/2 the ham for other uses.
