Birth-days, Split-peas and Gym-time.

Good morning and happy Saturday!  Happy Birthday (today) to Nicole.  Hope she and Kyle wake up to a beautiful day and celebrate a beautiful young ladies special day.   We love you, Nicole…and know you and the world have a lot of good things in store for one another.  Enjoy.

A slightly belated happy birthday to Carol.  YOU are an inspiration to all around you and a gift to those of us that are impacted and inspired by you.   The year ahead  looks filled with promise and I look forward to watching it unfold with you!!  Thanks for your dedication to your own personal health and fitness and thanks for all your support right here on peaceandfitness.

I promised my recipe for split-pea soup, but I combined a few recipes and didn’t write down what I did.  Here, however, is the basics…and it is one very, very easy soup to make.  My guess is you can’t really mess this one up and as I mentioned it seemed to be a big success at this week’s VFT dinner.  (Though sometimes I think those “kids” will say ANYTHING is delicious….as Pete pointed out this past week, vegans tend to be SO thankful to get a vegan meal, that they aren’t very picky.  I have to attest to that, too…so I often have to defer to Mitch, who ISN’T a vegan.  He liked the soup, too!)

SPLIT PEA SOUP

2 small onions, diced

2 stalks of celery, diced

4 cloves of garlic, minced

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

1 and 1/2 cups of split peas, rinsed

2 small russet potatoes, peeled and chopped

10 cups of water (I used half water, half vegetable broth)

salt and pepper to taste

a dash (or more) of cumin (I LOVE CUMIN)

1 teaspoon or 2 of soy sauce1 bay leaf (cook with, but remove before serving)

In a medium-sized pot, saute onions, garlic, celery in oil for about 5 minutes or until slightly softened.  Add peas, potatoes  and liquid (you decide if you want to use water, veggie broth or both).  Simmer for about half an hour, stirring often to prevent sticking.  Add more liquid as needed.  I let my cook for about an hour, adding water a little at a time till it became nice and thick and creamy.  Towards the end, add the salt, pepper and soy sauce.  Stir well and ENJOY!

This recipe makes about 6 cups.  I double everything!  My pot of soup ended up to be at least 12 servings.  You can always add a little more water to make it go further.  The potatoes definitely make the soup nice and thick and creamy.  We served it with Bacos (which have, FYI, never been real bacon…Yes, Bacos are vegan.  Funny, right?)

Check it out and let me know how it comes out!  Keep sending your recipes for your favorite soups.  I am soup intensive this winter.  They are inexpensive and easy to make, feed a lot of people and are just perfect on a cool (or downright cold) evening.

Enjoy your day everyone.  It’s GYM time!  Let’s get busy.