RUSTIC PEA SOUP

Wow, it's been quite a while since I last posted on my blog. Not since cupcakes took over my life. For those of you that don't know, I opened a cupcake bakery (Copper Lantern Cupcakes) and had cupcakes and buttercream coming out of my ears! I was living out a dream and took a hobby of mine into a full time retail space! Exciting! Well, it was also more than what I and my family bargained for. Lots and lots of time away from home and too much stress to run a family full time and a business full time. I know I'm great at multi-tasking, but somewhere in there I ran out of hours in the day to get it all done and ultimately decided to close the retail space and concentrate on what I really loved to do. Cooking and baking and blogging! Yay!!  So, I'm back to cooking, baking, blogging, cleaning, yardwork, kids, homework, sports, etc and I LOVE IT!! (Gosh, that list is long)



You may notice in most of my recipes that I don't add salt. I'm not a salt person. I try to season my foods with enough flavor that you don't even need it. You can adjust to suit your tastes. 

Anyhoo - I know it's spring and the weeds definitely know it's spring, but mother winter, she has other plans. She decided that the winter we missed during winter we would now experience during spring. So it gives me another month of making soup! I love soups! I make lots of them. They are just the best thing. I make a huge batch. Dish it out into individual bowls, label and freeze them. Then each day at lunch or dinner, I go and get one, microwave it and voila! Awesome!

So for this rainy day in the middle of April, I decided to make a rustic pea soup. I hope you enjoy it!

First put one of these genius bags into your slow cooker! Love these things!

Here's how it looks all dressed up! You'll be so glad you used this. Who wants to clean the crock pot after it's been cooking all day? Not me!

Here's what you'll need for this soup.

Toss the peas into the crock pot.

You can add the stock at any time. I do it first.

Bay leaves. (can't wait until my Bay Leaf tree gets bigger and I can go outside and pick one and toss it right in)

Some Thyme. You'll notice I use my palm for measuring for soups and things. It's about 2 tsp. Don't use this for baking, but feel free to figure out how much the palm of your hand holds when cooking savory foods. Saves more time cleaning spoons later.

Basil

All the seasonings tossed in. I also added about 1 tsp black pepper.

Cut up the onion. Nothing too fancy, remember this is "rustic". Large pieces are ok.

Quartered and sliced carrots.

Toss those in.

Quartered and sliced chicken apple sausage, about 1 pound. I use Aidell's, it's my favorite. They have an italian mozzarella that is scrumptuous too, I had this on hand, so it's what I used today.

Getting excited now! Almost ready.

Stir everything and place the lid on it. Set the time for 5 or 6 hours. (I usually do one hour on high, then 4-5 on low) I know it's tempting, but don't take the lid off and stir, I let it just cook and cook until the time is done.

This took 1 hour on high and 4 on low and was perfect!

I like to make mine just a touch creamy, so I add a few heaping spoonsfuls of greek yogurt. Probably about 1/2 cup. This is my favorite kind. (make sure it's plain, vanilla wouldn't taste too good here)

My heaping spoonfulls.

Now the easy part! Oh wait, it's all been easy. Ok, so now is the FUN part! I usually add some freshly shredded Parmesan to make it even yummier. ENJOY!!

Rustic Pea Soup

Created 4/11/12
Printable version                                 

Ingredients

1 bag of split peas (yellow or green)

1 lb chicken apple sausage

1 large onion (chopped)

3 carrots (chopped)

48 ounces of chicken stock

1/2 bouillon cube (chicken)

1 tsp Thyme

2 tsp Basil

1/2 tsp Marjoram

1/2 tsp Sage

1 tsp Crushed Red Pepper

1/2 tsp Pepper

3 Bay Leaves

1/2 cup greek yogurt

Grated parmesan to garnish (1T) per bowl

Directions

Dice the onions, carrots and sausage.

Toss everything except the greek yogurt and parmesan into a slow cooker.

Cook for 1 hour on high, then reduce heat and cook an additional 4-5 hours on low.

When done cooking, add yogurt and stir.

Scoop into bowls and garnish with a good tablespoon of freshly grated parmesan.

ENJOY!