Split Pea Soup

I love a thick, creamy soup in the winter. I got this recipe off a friend's blog who is a trained chef and it is the best soup recipe! The thing I love about this soup is that it is thick and creamy, but doesn't have the cream/butter/milk (aka fat) to make it that way. Despite the color, it is so very yummy. I served it with toasted sourdough bread. You can't go wrong with this meal for a healthier choice of a creamy soup on a cold winter night.

Split Pea Soup

• 1 onion, diced
• 1 Tablespoon butter
• 2 1/2 c. split peas (dried)
• Salt (be careful adding salt...maybe wait until the end because the ham is pretty salty and it will flavor the soup).
  
• 6-8 whole peppercorns
• 1 ham-hock*
• 8 c. chicken stock
• 2 stocks of celery, diced
• 1 carrot, diced
• minced basil

Sauté the onion in butter in a large pot until golden and translucent. Add the peas, ham-hock, stock, peppercorns, and salt to taste. Simmer for about 45 minutes, then add the carrot and celery. Blend with an emulsion blender** when the carrots are soft, then add the basil and serve.

*If you don't know what a ham-hock is, you basically just save the bone and what's left of the attached meat of a bone-in ham. This is a great way to be very resourceful and makes for a cheap meal. I heard you can also purchase a ham-hock at a honeybaked ham store. You boil the whole bone with the soup and then when the beans are cooked and the soup is done, you can discard the bone (leaving the flavor in the soup) or you can do what I like and pick the ham off the bone and add it back into the soup.

**I don't have an emulsion blender so I just blended the soup in batches in my blender and it worked fine.