Recipe: Split Pea Soup

Yield: half a gallon
Time: a couple of hours

Ingredients:

• one ham bone, with some of the meat still on it, plus some previously picked off bits of meat that isn't viable for sandwiches
  
• two small to medium sized onions, quartered and sliced
  
• one large or two smaller carrots, peeled and diced, or sliced
• one pound of dried split peas
• approx. half a teaspoon of salt
• pepper, preferably freshly ground
• two quarts of water

Method:

1. sautee the onions a few minutes until translucent
2. add the ham, ham bone, split peas, water, salt and pepper
3. bring to a boil then turn the heat down to low and simmer until the peas start to fall apart on their own (I let it go for a couple of hours, but it probably doesn't really take that long)
4. pull out the ham bone and let it cool
5. pick some more meat off the bone, shred it, and toss it back into the pot
6. whoosh it through a blender, or use a "boat motor" type hand held stick blender, until it's fairly smooth, but you can still see flecks of pork
7. adjust seasonings if necessary

Note: I normally use carrots in this recipe, but didn't have any this time, and I really don't think the soup suffered for the lack of them.