Soup Weather

It's always pie weather, but soup seems to be seasonal.

I love stopping at Pea Soup Andersen’s for the soup 

 

but it’s really easy to make at home

Split Pea Soup

1 1/2 cups green split peas

4 (10.5 ounce) cans chicken broth (low sodium)

6 slices bacon, cut into 1 inch pieces (or diced ham or see * below)

1 small onion, chopped

1 large carrot, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 bay leaves

1 teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary (use dried if that’s all you have) DON'T LEAVE OUT THE ROSEMARY!

Rosemary is often used for ornamental plantings, so look around your neighborhood to see if someone has a rosemary bush. Make sure you wash any purloined rosemary – dogs love to pee in the rosemary. 

 

Directions

This is the most important step: Sort thru the split peas for rocks and dirt pieces. Rinse the peas with running water.

Throw everything into a crookpot and cook for 6 – 8 hours.

I think that Lawry’s Seasoned Salt makes a fantastic addition to this soup, but the amount to add is a matter of taste. I wait until the soup is cooked to add salt.

*I generally don’t have bacon on hand, but usually have a bag of bacon bits from Costco in the frig, so I add about a ¼ cup when I start the soup.

Zoe Pie

I have a niece named Zoe. We call her Zoe Pie. She started working for Apple Computers 3 weeks ago. Now we can call her Zoe Apple Pie. 

Peaches

Smart and Final has 5 lb bags of frozen, sliced peaches. Cost about $12 to $13 a bag. I used these to make a big cobler:

Almost Fresh Peach Cobbler

2 cubes butter melted

5 pounds sliced peaches (frozen bag from Smart n Final)

1 – 1 ½  cups sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

1 ½ cups sugar

3 cups flour

2 TBL baking power

¼ tsp nutmeg

½ tsp salt

2 ¼ cups milk

Melt butter and pour into 10 x 15 pan

Mix peaches with 1 (1 ½) cups sugar and cinnamon in bowl

Mix flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and nutmeg together with whisk, add milk, stir in milk – do not over blend – mixture should still be lumpy.

Pour batter on top of butter in pan. Lay peach slices on top of batter.

Bake at 375 for 45 minutes

Makes about 20 servings

These peaches would be really good in a rustic pie:

Rustic Peach Pie

Buy a package of pre-rolled pie crust (or make your own if you are so inclined). Use one crust (save the other one for another time).  Drape it in a 9" pie dish with edges hanging over the rim of the pie dish. Mix the filling in a bowl. Pour onto crust. Fold the edges of the crust over the peaches. They won't meet in the center(the peaches in the center will not be covered). Bake the pie for 1 hour at 350F until the filling is bubbling and the crust is brown.

Filling

6 cups sliced peaches

1/4 cup cornstarch, or quick-cooking  tapioca

1/2 cup  granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Where's the pie?

A life lesson: Everyone's willing to eat with a dirty fork if there's pie.