A cupful of comfort

I’m sitting at my desk eating lunch, and as I likely won’t have time to blog this evening, have to tell you about this cup of soup.

Leftover soup.

Leftover split-pea soup.

As stated above, comfort in a cup. It was pretty damn good last night; I think it’s better today. Filling. Warm. The thing you want to be eating when it’s heartrendingly cold outside and next April seems so VERY far away.

Without further ado, the recipe:

• 1 pound dried split peas
• Three carrots, diced
• 1 small onion, diced
• 2 cups chicken stock
• 2 cups water
• 8 strips bacon, diced and fried crisp
• 1/2 cup diced smoked ham
• 1 tsp dried marjoram
• Salt and pepper to taste

Fry the bacon until crisp, and remove. Pour off all but 2 tbsp of the bacon grease into the crock you keep on the stove (you DO save your bacon fat, don’t you? You don’t? Oh, honey, I’m so sorry. You freakin’ idiot.), and saute the chopped onion and carrot until soft, about 5 minutes. Add diced ham and give it a quick sear. Add split peas, stock, water and marjoram; add a few grinds of pepper. Cook for an hour, until the peas are starting to soften, and taste; add salt if needed (mine didn’t). Simmer, uncovered, for another hour until peas are mushy. Stir bacon back into soup before serving.

Caveat: This is a little thinner than I’d like. It did thicken up in the fridge overnight, and is about perfect today. Of course, the bacon gets soft after being refrigerated overnight in the soup, but it imparts such a wonderful smoky flavor that you can’t really care.

I went whole hog and brought a slice of sourdough bread and some grated asiago cheese, and made myself a slice of cheese toast to go with it. Can’t beat it.

Headed home before long to finish cooking for the office pot-luck tonight. I have the dates stuffed and wrapped in bacon; they’ll go in the oven about 4:30. I need to make the German potato salad about the same time, so both will still be warm when I get them there. I have a five-pound bag of redskin potatos, and I’m trusting that’ll be sufficient to feed 18 or so adults. It’s not the only potato dish — someone is bringing a hash brown casserole, and damn, I love those things. Plus, I don’t know what all else, except that we’re having brisket and pork loin.

Should be plumb tasty. I’ll report in.

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