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!

Curried Lentils

This recipe is originally from Hannah Heis. She and her family eat vegetarian and I asked her for some recipes to help us cut down on our meat consumption. We are not vegetarians, but we only buy high quality meat from ecologically, sustainably, and ethically raised animals. It's more expensive so we just don't eat meat everyday. Anyway, here's the lentil recipe as I make it:

Curried Lentils

1/4 cup olive or safflower oil
1 large onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp salt
2 Tbs curry powder (Badia or Penzey's or other high quality brand)
1 cup lentils
2.5 cups water
2 beef bouillon cubes or 2 tsp Better than Bouillon
1 bay leaf
2 Tbs lemon juice or juice from one whole small lemon
~1/2 cup chopped parsley
1/4 each of two types of dried fruit (currants, raisins, sweetened cranberries, prunes)
1 medium apple peeled and chopped (less is OK)
~ 4 crimini or button mushrooms finely chopped (twice through an egg slicer)

Saute together oil, onion, and garlic until onion is translucent. Add salt and curry powder, saute for another minute.

Combine lentils, water, bouillon, bay leaf, and onion mixture together. Bring to a boil and simmer (covered) 20 minutes.

Add lemon juice, parsley, dried fruit, apple, and mushrooms. Simmer another 15 minutes (covered) or until lentils are tender. Add 1/4 cup water if it's dry. Serve over jasmine rice.

It freezes well.

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A note about the curry powder:
The quality of the curry powder will make or break this dish. If you look at the ingredients on different curry powders, they vary. I'm not sure what the difference is exactly, but I can tell by smelling which ones will work well. You want a curry powder that smells sweet. You will have to compare to know what I mean.

A note about the fruit and mushrooms:
This part of the dish I vary all the time based on what I have in the house. I never do more than 1/2 cup of dried fruit total. My most recent version used currants and diced prunes, 1/3 of a large apple and I didn't have any mushrooms. The mushrooms add a more meaty flavor. You don't want to add too much fruit and mushrooms or it will overpower the lentils, but some variation will work well and it adds nice flavor.