Peas porridge hot

I don't know about the rest of the country, but here in upstate New York it's been snot-freezingly cold all week. It's getting old. It's the kind of cold where, you can be standing in the middle of your house, wearing four layers, drinking hot tea, and you still feel the chill coming in from outside. Brrr. Simply put, it's soup weather, ladies and gentlemen. So yesterday, after coming home from the shower, soup is what I made. It went a little something like this.

Split Pea Soup

8 cups vegetable stock or water (I used 4 cups of each)
2 cups yellow split peas, sorted and rinsed
2 medium onions, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 medium potatoes, cubed
2 medium carrots, sliced
3 stalks celery, sliced
4 allspice berries
4 whole black peppercorns
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp dried marjoram
2 tsp salt

It's honestly this simple: bring the stock/water to a boil in a big pot. Dump everything into the pot. Bring back to a boil, then lower the heat, cover the pot, and simmer about 1 1/2 hours. It's a good idea to stay close by and check it periodically, in case the heat is too high and your soup starts to scorch.

Dunk in a spoon and make sure everything's well cooked. If the peas are still grainy, let it cook awhile longer. Once done, puree the soup in batches, using a blender or food processor. Pickles go really well with this soup. We tried chopping up a dill pickle and mixing it in, (post-pureeing)
and that was pretty tasty. The garnish on top of the soup in the picture is some escabeche I made this summer in my canning frenzy. It's sort of like that Italian pickled-vegetable mix giardiniera, which you can buy in the store. Good stuff.

Enjoy, and stay warm, wherever you are.