Wednesday, January 8, 2014

The Gift that keeps on giving

We had Christmas Dinner at Mom's house this year; salad, green beans, salad, two kinds of homemade Kluskies (thanks Wally!!) and a big ol' ham.  A few days later (probably after Mom couldn't bear to eat any more ham), she came to the house with a ham bone in hand.  Whoo hoo!!  There was still a good amount of ham on the bottom, so I cut chunks off and put them in a zippy bag in the freezer.  The bone was almost immediately put into a pot along with fixings for split pea soup.  Oh, how I love split pea soup.  Oh, how quickly it disappears.

Since the woodstove had been cranked 24/7 for the past however many days, I've been trying to keep it working to heat both our house and our food.

After Rhiannon and I did our math school work for the day.......
Greater Than, Less Than, Simple Fractions, Addition & Subtraction
.........we utilized those same delicious educational components by soaking them in water overnight then dumped them with the ham chunks, bay leaves, onions & other obligatory soup seasonings and let it sit on the wood stove most of the day:

We had such a big chicken supper last night that the soup kind'a sat on the sidelines.  But that's ok.  I think it tastes better once it sits for a while.  Today I'm going to try cooking cornbread on top of the stove and we'll have that and soup for supper.

It's Soup Weather.....are YOU making any?  If so, I'd love for you to share the recipe so I can add it to  the "Soup" section in my recipe box.  I made a homemade Cream of Mushroom that I got from Mama Pea last year and it was heaven.  Maybe I'll splurge on a package of mushrooms and oyster crackers next time I'm at the grocery store and make that again.

10 comments:

  1. Been a long time since I had some split pea soup. Looks like I might have to make some soon.
    I like to make 15 beans soup with sausage and onions. Yummy!
    http://adventures--of--life.blogspot.com/2013/09/chatty-cathy.html

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  2. There's hardly anything better than split pea soup made with a big, ol' ham bone. One of my faves! My mom made it often and both my brother and I loved it. Matter of fact, when brother and his wife had a ham, he would take the bone to my mom to make him soup as his wife said she couldn't make it as good as my mom did. (Have ham bone, will travel.)

    I have soup simmering on the stove as we speak. No real recipe though. I made creamed (hard boiled) eggs with ham pieces and green peas over toast for breakfast. Hubby commented when we finished that we had enough "sauce" leftover for another meal. I told him it was going to be the base for soup. I defrosted a quart of turkey broth, stirred in the leftover creamed mixture, added chopped broccoli and corn from the freezer and chopped onions and two chunked up potatoes. All of a sudden, I have a nice sized batch of soup. Could hardly be better for this weather. Speaking of which, we have just broken 0° for the first time in months! (Okay, so it only feels that long.) The thermometer is now at a whopping 4° ABOVE zero. Break out the tank tops and sandals!

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  3. I love split pea soup - too bad it wages war with my insides. TMI? This is soup weather for sure - made some potato leek soup when I found a bag of frozen chopped leeks waaaay back in the freezer and had some taters that needed cooking. My mother is pretty proprietary about any ham bone in the family. Thank goodness she is not as anxious to cook anymore at 90. That gives the rest of us (ahem, me) a chance to get my hands on it! p.s. Love your math aids...

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  4. Oh dear god I love bean soup of all kinds... Except I can't have ham... GODDAMN DIET

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  5. Last night I made Creamy Tomato Tortellini Soup. I found the recipe here,
    http://www.keyingredient.com/recipes/171098794/creamy-tomato-tortellini-soup/
    It was yummy. I'm not a huge fan of Italian seasoning, so I used half of what was called for. I used out home made chicken stock that I had canned in the pantry. I used 2% milk instead of half and half. I think it was even better reheated for dinner tonight.

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  6. I love split pea soup, but I'm the only one in the house who does... And there is no way to make a small batch. I love soup pretty much all the way around.

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  7. Like Ruth, I loved split pea soup the one time I made it; DH did not! Ashlee, substitute a package of stew meat if your diet allows. I have a great bean soup recipe that uses it and chopped potatoes


    Beef N Bean Soup

    (this makes a large pot of soup. I mash the beans just a bit after the cooking time is done.)

    1 lb. beef stew meat
    1 lb. Great Northern Beans
    1/4-1/2 cup chopped celery
    1 med. onion, chopped
    3 large potatoes, chopped
    Salt and Pepper to taste.
    Mix altogether; add water to cover and simmer 5 hr., stirring occasionally and adding water as needed. Stir in 1 stick butter and serve.

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  8. We just had chicken noodle soup about a week ago, but without being able to wash dishes (other than in one bathroom sink), there isn't much cooking going on here.

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  9. IMHO soup is always better the second day! I'd love to hear how your cornbread turned out.

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