Pea Soup

Love it or hate it?

I love it! It is one of my very most favorite soups.  My poor husband, he told me he hated pea soup when we were dating and I told him he just hadn't had GOOD pea soup yet.
So I made him some.  Guess what?  He married me anyway! 
Yes, it was Good Pea Soup.
For most people who don't like it, it's a texture thing. I'm sure of it.

Here's how I make it.

1 ham hock, or 2, or bones from a leftover picnic shoulder, meat on
1 onion
1/2 head of garlic
leek tops
10 cups water
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar

Add all of the above to a large stock pot and bring to a boil.  Turn down to a medium simmer and let go, uncovered, for 2=3 hours.

Next step:

3 carrots, scrubbed and diced
3 stalks celery, sliced fine
1 onion, diced fine
1 bag split mixed peas (green and yellow) or 1/2 bag yellow split peas and same amount of green lentils if you're short like I was..
You can place this in another stock pot, or your crockpot.  Cover with the strained ham stock and bring to a simmer for several hours until the peas are soft.OR cook in your crockpot on high for 6 hours.  Reserve the hocks because you will be adding that meat back to the soup in the last step..
Remove meat from the bones.  If you have an immersion blender, now is the time to put it into your soup and whiz up some of that goodness.  Leave some peas whole though!  Now add back the meat and continue cooking until it's hot.  Serve up with buns, bread or bisquits of your choice.  We used Kinickinnick's Sunflower Seed Bread and Bun mix (Gluten Free) and it was very good. 

I think next time I will make my ham stock in the slow cooker while I'm sleeping.  Another thing one can do is use the pressure cooker, if you have one.  I've done that before and it's always a time saver. 

Soup freezes beautifully in freezer bags.  I just lost a jar to the freezer so won't be using jars anymore, for sure!

Best,

Naturally gluten free