The Greenest Split Pea Soup
My rep as a balaboosta depends heavily on my freezer. Without the ability to freeze, I would surely need to start looking into takeout food. When I get home at five, dinner needs to be just about ready to eat. A real life saver is being able to pull things out of the freezer that are ready to go. Soup is a great example of this. It's also a fabulous way to sneak healthy things into food for picky eaters.
The best way to store the soup is by pouring into containers an inch shy of the top and labeling well (you won't remember what it is - trust me.) The cheap throwaway quart containers are great for this purpose.
Also, any leftover soup in the pot from dinner, I will rewarm the next morning and put in a thermos for a school lunch (or if it's for the office you can put in a container to microwave - but don't tell anyone that I do that because I preach anti-microwaving propaganda most of the time.)
I have a lot of soups in the rotation but this is a staple that always gets me through a busy week.
The Greenest Split Pea Soup
Ingredients:
1 Spanish Onion, large chop
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1 Fennel bulb, large chop (I use the entire fennel- including the tops if you want because we purée at the end so the more green, the better)
3 cloves garlic
3 ribs of celery, cleaned and rough chop
3 bags frozen peas (10 ounces each)
1 bag dried split peas
1 Tablespoon kosher salt
Directions:
Take a large soup pot and heat your olive oil over a medium flame. Add your onion and saute for 3 minutes, just until the onion starts to sweat. Then take all the other ingredients and pile them into the pot. Add water so that 3/4 of the pot is full. Add 1 tablespoon kosher salt. Please keep in mind if you are using a different salt it could be stronger so add the salt to taste and not necessarily 1 tablespoon.
Bring soup up to a boil and simmer on low for 1 hour. Purée with immersion blender. Done.
Plan Ahead: This soup can be made and kept in the refrigerator for one full week. Alternatively, you can freeze the cooled soup in containers for up to 2 months.
