Split Pea Soup

(pictured: split pea soup topped with truffle cream and Italian finishing salt)

The weather today was cool (47 degrees Fahrenheit), cloudy, and windy. It also looked as though it was going to rain most of day. Definitely not weather conducive to getting outside. With the wind blowing against the house and leaves rustling around outside soup seemed like the appropriate thing to make today. Not to mention it was something that didn’t need much attention while I did other things in the house.

Split pea soup is one of my favorites. I prefer mine smooth and the hubby likes his chunky. So, to make us both happy I puree half the soup in the blender and leave half chunky and then mix them together. Voila, we are both happy, or equally unhappy depending on how you choose to look at it.

As usual I have kept the fat down by water sautéing the veggies. Additionally I have kept the sodium down by adding a small amount to the pot and then finishing the soup with an acid, in this case lemon juice, and finishing the soup with a sprinkling of salt on top when serving. All these things contribute to the fat and sodium content of this soup. Now I can have a little salad with oil in the dressing without having too much processed fat in my day. Here is the soup I made tonight as part of our dinner.

Split Pea Soup
Makes 8 servings about 2 cups each

Ingredients:

1 red onion, peeled and finely minced
4 carrots, finely diced
2 parsnips, finely diced
2 cups water to water sauté vegetables
1 pound split peas
water to cover soup ingredients by 1 inch
3 bay leaves
1 teaspoon Italian finished salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon celery seed
3 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
1 lemon, zested and juiced

Directions:

Water sauté the onion, carrots, and parsnips until tender. Add the remaining ingredients except the lemon and cook until the split peas are tender. The exact time it will take to cook the peas will depend on their age. Older peas and beans take longer to cook but will eventually get soft.

I pureed half the soup in my blender to make texture that is smooth and chunky. However, you can leave it completely chunky or smooth.

Add the lemon juice and zest just before serving. Then taste for seasoning and add salt and pepper as desired. I find that if I add a little on top of each serving I can lower the overall sodium content in our food.

You can top the soup with tofu sour cream, truffle cream, truffle oil or a little extra virgin olive oil. Any of them would work well. I had my soup tonight with a dollop of truffle cream, but I am a truffle junkie.

Nutritional Information:

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 270.06
Calories From Fat (3%) - 8.59

Total Fat - 1.03g
Saturated Fat - 0.15g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 287.96mg
Potassium - 957.43mg
Total Carbohydrates - 52.6g
Fiber - 19.3g
Sugar - 9.88g
Protein - 15.41g

Comments:

This is one of those meals that are so comforting when the weather is cool and generally unpleasant. A hot bowl of thick split pea soup is the perfect answer to cool fall weather in my opinion.

Each serving of this soup contains more than 6,800IU of vitamin A, 200mcg of folate, and 270mg of phosphorus.

Unrelated note:

The hubby is on his way home from the office so we are going to start pulling out Christmas decorations for the cats to knock down.

I will be back tomorrow with more of my recipes from Thanksgiving.

I hope you all have a great evening.