It’s finally the weekend! I’m feeling much recovered, which was helped along fabulously by the gorgeous weather outside today (got to open my windows for a little while to air out the house, which felt great).
Then I spent the whole day slaving over the stove to make boeuf bourguignon ala Julia Child (and by slaving, I mean watching various shows on Hulu while I sipped wine and shooed cats off the counter), and let me tell you, the work was worth it.
But more on that in another post.
Tomorrow Fritz and I are checking one more item off our Long Island bucket list–going to breakfast at Maureen’s Kitchen. I’ve heard only the most fabulous things, so I’m pretty excited to finally get to experience it (wait lines and all). Apparently the diner-style breakfast place started as a truck stop and got very, very popular. Not sure how it will rival my current reigning breakfast champ, Toast, but I’m open to new discoveries.
And finally a recipe for you!
This soup is a slight variation on the classic split pea soup because I ran out of split peas and subbed in lentils. It hardly changed to taste of the soup (not even sure I would have been able to tell if I didn’t see myself do it), but it did add some extra nutrition, which is always nice. Lentils are full of protein and fiber, along with some other good stuff (Wikipedia tells me folate and vitamin B).
This recipe makes a ton–we ate half (about six servings) and froze the other half for later. I also used the ham (and hambone) that I had baked earlier in the week, but you can buy smoked ham hocks if you don’t have the leftovers handy). You could easily halve the recipe if you don’t have quite as many leftovers to use up.
Split Pea and Lentil Soup
- 1 T olive oil
- 6-8 carrots, peeled and diced
- 6-8 stalks celery, diced
- 1 onion, diced
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 hambone (mine was leftover from a ham shank made a few days earlier)
- 8 small potatoes, peeled and diced
- 2 C chopped ham
- 1 quart low-sodium chicken broth, plus additional water to cover
- 1 C split peas
- 1 1/2 C green lentils
- salt and pepper to taste
This is a pretty basic soup.
Cook the celery, carrots, garlic, and onion in the oil in a large pot over medium-high heat until translucent. You can throw in the hambone at this point to encourage any browning of whatever meat is on there–browning=flavor.
Add the potatoes and diced ham.
Next, add the broth, split peas, and lentils. Add additional water (you could also use a few cups more of broth as well, just be aware of not adding too much salt!) to cover everything. You need a lot of water here for the split peas and lentils to soak up, but you can always add more as you need it.
Bring to a boil then reduce heat to low and cover.
Cook for an hour or so, until the lentils and split peas start to fall apart, creating a thick and delicious soup. Remove the hambone and discard.
I like split pea soup thick, but not too thick. I hate when split pea soup is the consistency of mashed potatoes.
Season with salt and pepper to taste, adding additional broth or water if you want it a bit thinner.
You really can’t go wrong with a soup like this for the end of winter.
Hearty, satisfying, and talk about comforting.
Also, because my sister no longer calls this my food blog and instead tells people I have a “cat blog”:
Cat kisses!
