Homemade Split Pea Soup SIMPLE, EASY delicious

The stuff you need:

1 Ham Bone with meat
3 large carrots chopped
5 celery stalks chopped
2 medium onions diced
8 garlic cloves diced
1 large potato peeled & cut into cubes
2 – 14 oz bags Split Peas
1 TBS Black Pepper
1 TBS Thyme
1 TBS Sage
½TBS Ground Cloves
Salt to Taste
What to do with the stuff:

Put the bone into a large, heavy bottomed soup pot and cover with veggie or chicken stock ( or water)
Bring to a boil,
Saute’ all diced veggies, in olive oil
Add veggies to large pot, reduce to a hard simmer
Pour the dry peas into a container and pick them over looking for bad peas and stones
*****On the package of peas – there will be directions to soak/soften the peas, don’t do it******
The starch in the peas will be lost, and your soup will never thicken !! ANCIENT SECRET HERE !!!
Pour the dry peas into the pot, reduce to slow/soft boil
Add all the spices, (except salt)
Stir for a while to make sure peas aren’t stuck to the bottom and start to burn
Don’t cover the pot right away, the steam needs to evaporate so your soup will thicken
A gas stove set on low flame keeping at the slow soft boil-simmer
On an electric stove, the best setting is about halfway between simmer and low
Slowly continue to boil, stirring every 25-30 minutes, allowing the boiling water to remove all the meat and marrow from the ham bone
After 2- 3 hrs remove bone, peel off the loosened meat before returning all the meat AND bone back to the pot
Allow soup to continue to simmer, stirring about every 30 minutes, (this is to keep things from sticking to the bottom of the pot)
Simmer roughly 5-6 hours, as it takes about this long to thicken
The longer it cooks the thicker it gets
The peas and veggies will dissolve, the bone will be cleaned of remaining meat and marrow
Remove the large bones and any fat/gristle you see
Taste the soup to adjust the seasonings
The hambone may have had a lot of salt, you may not need to add any, or you may need to add to taste
Trust your palate, increase the other spices accordingly

Notes:
If your soup happened to stick to the bottom and is burned lightly-don’t loosen anymore of the burned soup from the bottom
Simply transfer the soup into another pot, (don’t scrape the burned part on the bottom until after the good soup is transferred)
Put new pot on the stove, finish cooking
This is AWESOME for leftovers! and freezes really well too, so- you can cut the recipe in half, OR make the large quantity, and freeze the rest for another great meal
For vegetarians, omit the hambone-may cut the simmer time down a bit, add Tamari for a deep flavour