SPLIT PEA AND HAM SOUP

I had a huge spiral ham bone left over from a meal last week. Today I tackled cleaning up the ham. There was enough ham that I planned on preparing three meals out of it. The cubed ham will be a lovely addition to some homemade mac and cheese and I will add some to the hash browns for Sunday brunch, but the bone was going to be used up for the pea soup.

You could make this soup by just following the directions on the back of the package, or you could hearty it up by adding any left over vegetable that you have around. I have even included chopped spinach or lettuce leaves, and the green stems of leeks when making green pea soup. Experiment , it's soup, you can't go wrong. This soup is even better the second day. If it thickens up on you as pea soup has a tendency to do just add some broth to it.

Split Pea & Ham Soup

2 cups dried split peas, soaked for 1 hour in

cold water, then drained

1left over ham bone/or some diced up ham

5 c. water and 2 cups stock (Vegetable)

2 T. butter

1/2 c. salt pork finely chopped OR 1/2 C chopped bacon

1 med. onion chopped

2 ed. carrots chopped

1 potato diced (Optional)

1 bay leaf

1 sprig thyme

salt/pepper

sugar(optional))

Place the ham bone in the water , add the peas, broth , bay leaf and a few pepper corns.

Bring to boil, skim, cover and cook slowly while preparing the following:

melt the butter add the onions and salt pork or the bacon and fry up until they are softened. Add the carrots potatoes thyme and cook for a few minutes. Add this mixture to the peas. Continue cooking all together for at least an hour or until the peas are soft. Remove the ham bone and trim off any pieces of ham or add cubed ham to the soup. Return to simmer and reheat the pea soup. adjust the seasoning. Serve with croutons or a chunk of bread, although this soup is hearty on it's own.