After three weeks of truly awful weather, on the day I decide to bring nice hearty warming pea and ham soup for lunch, we get this glorious autumn day. It's not exactly tropical outside, admittedly, but you feel warm just looking at the sun.I weakened and bought a bread roll from the supermarket to go with my soup too, so this won't be the most slimming lunch. The soup I actually made on Saturday, for when Craig was supposed to bring compost. It turned out to be a miserable day though, so we postponed the compost-spreading party and I had to eat an entire loaf of bread myself. At least the soup freezes well.
soup = 245 Cal
bread roll = ~250 Cal (guessing - it has some cheese on it)
Total = 495 Cal. Not actually that bad.
Pea and Ham Soup recipe
Ingredients
1 bacon hock
2 carrots, grated
1 onion, chopped
1 cup split peas
Method
Put bacon hock in a big pot with enough water to cover. Bring to boil and simmer for ages - until it's falling to pieces. This took about 4 hours. Retrieve all the solid material from the pot, and feed the skin, bones, and fat to your favourite animals. After my cats have finished with it I put the remains outside for the hedgehogs. Taste your stock. If it is strong enough tasting you can add more water to it. You should probably end up with about 3-4 litres. Chop up the lean meat and return it to the pot. Let it sit overnight (in the fridge if your kitchen is warm). Next day, remove the fat which has floated to the top and solidified - your cats may or may not like this, but the hedgehogs will. I'm pretty sure your dog will too.
Add the carrots, onion and peas to the gelatinous bacony stock in the pot, bring to the boil and simmer for another hour or so, or until the peas have disintegrated and the carrots and onions are mush. Taste. Add salt if necessary. Eat.
Today I wore comfy Ecco boots. I needed to after those things yesterday.
And my trouser legs don't really sit like that. It's an artifact of my leaning forward to take the photo.
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