Split Pea and Sweet Potato Soup

Every year I have to make split pea soup. On our birthday, we decided to go over to the local meat market and buy some nice steaks to have for birthday dinner.  To my joyful surprise, they had smoked ham hocks in the case too!  "I'll take the largest one please!"  And that's when split pea soup became our destiny...and I have to admit, I'm surprised by the short ingredient list.  I thought I forgot something, but it's all there.  I'm not sure where the sweet potato came from, I was looking at the veggies I had and just thought it might be a perfect addition.  It was.

Ham and Sweet Potato Split Pea Soup
What you'll need:
1 large ham hock
4 cups diced carrots divided
3 cups chopped celery divided (use heart and leaves if you can)
1/2 large onion chopped
8 cups chicken stock
3 cloves garlic
1 medium sweet potato diced and divided
1 bag dried peas
1 teaspoon fresh ground pepper

In a large soup pot, add chicken stock and ham hock and bring to a boil.  Reduce to a slight boil and let cook for about 4 hours.  Meat should come off the bone in big chunks.  Don't worry about shredding it, it will continue to fall apart as you make the soup. (You may want to add a little more ham chucks.  We added a small pack of the packaged ham cubes.)

Once ham has fallen off bone, try and remove (if any) the bits of skin/fat that are attached to the meat.  Add garlic and pepper and half of each carrots, sweet potato, onion, and celery.  Allow to cook, still at a small boil, until soft (about 15 minutes).  Once vegies are soft, add the bag of dried peas. Reduce heat to medium low.  Stirring occasionally let peas cook for 30-45 minutes or until you can see that they are starting to absorb the liquid and break down.  Once peas start to mush, but you can still see some of their shape, add remaining vegetables.  The soup will be done when vegetables are soft and soup is thick.  The peas shouldn't be visible anymore.

If you wanted to make this quicker, you could skip the ham hock and just use the packaged ham chunks, but you would loose the awesome flavor that develops from boiling the ham bone.  Winter comfort food? Yes please! Enjoy!

Pea Potato Salad

What do you do when you can't decide which salad to make? Answer: You mix em' up into a new awesome salad.  I couldn't decide if I wanted to make Pea and Cheese salad or a bacon potato salad, so I made both...in a way.  It turned out really good, and I will totally make it again.

What you'll need:

6 cups potatoes (6 cups when they are cooked and diced)
6 eggs
1 cup cheddar diced
2 stalks celery diced
1 cup bacon crumbles
1/4 green onion chopped
2 cups frozen peas (not defrosted)

Dressing
1 cup greek yogurt
1/4 cup mayo
1 tablespoon yellow mustard
2 tablespoons pickle juice
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon dried ground mustard
1 tablespoon dried dill
1 teaspoon salt

Removed peas from freezer and set aside to thaw a bit.  (Do not defrost in microwave.  You want them still a little froze to hold together when you mix into salad).  In a large pot, boil potatoes until fork tender.  Place eggs into cold water a second pot and bring to a boil.  Once boiling, time for 15 minutes then run under cold water.  Slice raw bacon into pieces and cook.  Sometimes I like to chop before I cook so I don't have to crumble it up once its cooked.  Scissors work really well to do this.

In a large bowl, add diced potato, celery, bacon, diced cheese and green onion.  Mix up your dressing and pour over salad.  Gently fold into salad until well combined.  Slice eggs and add with peas.  Gently fold those in now.  You want to be as easy as you can to not smash peas, eggs, or cooked potatoes.

There you have it.  A hybrid summer salad that is awesome! Enjoy!