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March 19, 2011
Saturday Soup
Ham and Split Pea Soup
Saturday morning, Doolia once again made multi-grain bread while everyone else slept in. I once again substituted 2 tablespoons flaxseed meal for 2 tablespoons of the hot cereal. And used the roasted pumpkin seeds (pepitas) again. A couple slices of this bread makes a filling breakfast. While the bread was proofing (rising) I did a thorough cleaning of the stove and oven.
When Dooley woke up, we decided to use the left-over ham to make Ham and Split Pea Soup. Alice, a friend at work had brought split pea soup to a pot luck and that inspired me to try this recipe.
It says to poach a smoked picnic ham, but we used the leftover from our roast ham earlier in the week. Even though it was already fully cooked, we put it in the dutch oven with water and bay leaves and let it poach for 2 hours. We chopped the vegetables and had some time to relax while the ham finished poaching.
The ham was literally falling apart by the end of 2 hours and was a little hard to remove from the pan--it kept coming apart and splashing back down into the water. Made a mess of my freshly scrubbed stove. Oh well. It didn't take much to clean it up again.
Doolia shredded the ham with two forks while Dooley browned the chopped onions, carrots, and celery in a little olive oil. A pinch of sugar facilitated the browning process. When everything was well carmelized, we added it all to the dutch oven with the split dried peas, and the shredded ham. Then in went some diced redskin potatoes, and some more time covered on the stovetop, and before long, we had a hearty stew to enjoy. It was filling and flavorful.
We're discovering that you really need to start early for some of these recipes. But for this one, we had dinner ready by 4 pm.
Posted by jdooley at March 19, 2011 05:31 PM