Green Split Pea Soup with Ham

I'm the first to admit that pea soup is not very photogenic so I took a picture of ingredients. My significant other is not the only one I know that won't touch the finished product with a ten foot pole. I have a great recipe and my dad and I enjoy it for weeknight dinners.

Andersen's split pea soup is famous in these parts. Billboards along 101 on the way to Buelleton feature a cartoon of two chefs, Hap-Pea and Pea-Wee trying to split a pea with a mallet and chisel, or stirring a huge pot of soup. I finally tried the famous soup a while back. What a disappointment! Their recipe is almost identical to mine but it didn't include the ham. It even needed salt. My recipe is much better.

Here's the recipe:
2 cups of dried green split peas
1 cup chopped celery
1 bay leaf
1 quart water
1 quart chicken stock
1/2 cup chopped water
1/4 tsp thyme
1 ham bone (HoneyBaked if possible)
1/2 cup diced carrots
salt & pepper
Put everything into a crock pot on high for 1 hour, turn it down and cook 4-5 hours or longer.
Take out the ham bone then spoon the liquid off the top and strain any fat. Add the strained broth back to the rest of the soup. Use a wand blender if you like the soup smooth. Add any ham bits to the soup and salt and pepper to taste.

This can also be made on the stove top. Simmer covered 2 1/2 to 3 hours

Comfort Food on a Rainy Sunday

Last Sunday there was an Oktoberfest celebration on a nearby farm and we were all set for bratwurst and beer when it started to rain. OK, change of plans. What do you cook on a rainy Sunday but chicken and dumplings? I must say, although my mother was a great cook, this was not part of her repertoire. My SO's mother had made it though so I got a thumbs up from him. He likes simple cooking but I usually have a hard time getting it right the first time. I felt confident in my dumpling making ability, now being on speaking terms with biscuits and scones. Melinda Lee spoke in glowing terms about a chicken and dumplings recipe I used that and made some adaptations to make allowances for what I had on hand. I didn't want to go out in the horrendous occasional drizzle after all! I used frozen chicken breasts, cut into quarters, instead of the whole pieces the recipe calls for, and left out parsley,since I didn't have any. The final product didn't come out very photogenic so I'm posting one that looks better on my blog. Note to self - add the blasted parsley and maybe a photo of the dish would be blog-worthy.

Melinda Lee's recipe comes out to be more of a chicken dish with sauce and dumplings. I doubled the amount of chicken stock after the initial cooking to make it soupier and cooked the dumplings on top of the chicken and stock. After the dumplings were finished cooking I followed Melinda's recipe and finished the sauce with the cream and eggs. I liked the creaminess of the sauce and the large pieces of chicken. The review on the dish was "More dumplings, less chicken." Bruce remembers it as a soup covered with the dumplings. There will be another rainy Sunday to get a little closer to the mark.