Split Pea, Ham, and Mushroom Soup

I have to thank both Emily Farrow and my parents, Allan and Eleanor Odden, for this soup. Emily Farrow gave me The Joy of Cooking as a wedding gift. The following recipe is based on the Split Pea or Lentil Soup recipe on pages 177-178. Some of the instructions below are taken word for word and I maintained the formatting. You'll have to compare to get a sense for what I changed.

My parents often made a split pea and ham soup around Christmas. I can't remember if they did it every year, but often enough to make an impression. I remember their soups being yummy and thick. Their soups had plenty of ham and veggies. The Joy of Cooking recipe is simply a split pea soup with the flavors of ham and veggies. I changed it to be a thick and chunky soup. A more descriptive name would be Ham and Mushroom Soup with Green Broth. :-) But that sounds strange.

Split Pea, Ham, and Mushroom Soup

Wash and soak in 8 cups of water
2 cups split peas
Drain the peas, reserving the liquid. Add enough water to the reserved liquid to make 10 cups. Adding peas again, cook, covered, 2.5-3 hours with
a ham bone
~5-6 slices of ham, depending on the size
Add and simmer, covered, 2 hours longer until tender:
2 cups chopped onions
1 cup chopped celery (with leaves)
1 cup chopped carrots
2 cups crimini mushrooms finely chopped (twice through and egg slicer)
1 clove garlic, minced
1 bay leaf
1 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp thyme
Remove bones and bay leaf.
Season to taste

When we made this at Christmas we let it sit for an hour off the heat because we were watching the second Transformers movie and Micah was sleeping. We all added salt and pepper to our bowls. (As a general rule, if you want to add salt and pepper to the soup as you cook it, you can add 1 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp black pepper.) The soup was wonderful!