Split Pea Soup and Food Storage

I have finally decided that I should start a food storage. I live in a very small apartment but I figured I needed to do it anyway. So, last week I went to a food storage cooking class on how to cook with dehydrated carrots and onions. It was an amazing class. The teacher was awesome! I learned so  much from her. She said that she has a coffee grinder that she uses to grind up the dehydrated onions into onion powder and she grinds up the carrots as well. She says she uses the carrot powder to thicken things up like spaghetti sauce. What a great idea! I would have never thought of that. Then, she gave this great recipe for split pea soup. It is a green soup and it looked more like salsa than soup to me, but it tasted amazing. So, I made it this week. It has ham in it as well, so I got to use  more of the honey baked ham leftovers in my freezer. YAY! I'm trying to use it up any way that I can.


If using dehydrated onions or carrots, rehydrate them before using them. The ratio for re-hydrating is 2:1. Two cups of water for every one cup of carrots/onions.


Split pea soup

Ingredients:
1lb split peas (You can find these next to the beans and rice)
1tbs. olive oil
1 c. onions
1 c. carrots
1 stalk celery (optional)
4 c. chicken or vegetable stock
4 c. water
8 oz. lean ham, finely chopped
1/4 tsp. thyme
1.4 tsp. marjoram
1 bay leaf
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
Rinse peas under running water. Put into large saucepan and cover generously with water. Bring to a boil and boil 3 minutes, skimming off surface foam. Drain.

Heat oil in soup pot over medium heat. Add onions, and cook 3-4 minutes, stirring occasionally until softened. Add carrots and celery and continue cooking 2 minutes. Add the peas, pour in stock and water and stir to combine.

Bring just to a boil and stir in ham. Add Thyme, marjoram and bay leaf. Reduce heat, cover and cook gently 1-2 hours until ingredients are very soft. Remove bay leaf and serve.

Make sure not to add the salt and pepper until the soup is done cooking. If you add the pepper before it cooks for the 1-2 hours, it will end up tasting bitter.