Monday, January 19, 2009

recipe-a-week #3: root vegetable and split pea soup & comfort week day 1: food





I decided today that ill-fitting socks which slide around in one's shoes are not in accordance with the ideals of Comfort Week.

A chicken pot pie recipe I make is my favourite comfort food. You can see the original recipe here. But I've posted it before, so I'm going to share a new recipe with you which I tried this weekend, was definitely comfort food, and it doesn't have any butter in it. Comfort food without butter? What? I'm also counting this as my new recipe of the week. (Incidentally, I have only been using my print recipes and haven't consulted the internets once so far since that post.)

Like some of the other participants, comfort food to me is often in soup form. And this one is a doozy. I've never had a vegetable soup with the flavour of this one - utterly delicious. Lots of parsnips may have been the ticket, or maybe the split peas - whatever it was, it was yummy. Phillip loved it, too. The recipe is from 1000 Vegetarian Recipes and is called

Root Vegetable and Split Pea Soup

4 cups water
1 1/4 cups chopped celeriac (I didn't have this, so I tossed in 1 1/4 cups of regular celery)
1 cup chopped onions
1 cup chopped carrots
3/4 cup chopped parsley root or parsnips (I used parsnips, and probably more than 3/4 cup)
3/4 cup split peas
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups vegetable broth
3/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper

1. In saucepan, bring water to a boil. Add celeriac, onions, carrots, parsley roots, split peas and garlic. Return to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, 1 hour.

2. Add broth and parsley. Return to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, 30 minutes longer. Stir in salt and pepper.

I think this might also be delicious pureed, but I left it chunky so that Phillip could eat it a bit more independently. Oh, and I also added some cooked chopped pork that I had on hand. It's soup - completely open to variations.

**
For a list of everyone participating in Comfort Week, have a peek here.

10 comments:

Amber said...

Oh, it sounds wonderful. Can't wait to try this, and soon! I have three pounds of split peas that look lovely in their canister but would really rather be eaten. :)

Sebrina Wilson said...

Mmm this sounds good!!!

Vickie LeBlanc said...

This looks heavenly Sherrie. Just my kinda soup. And by the way, I found some beeswax polish... in Yarmouth. Thanks for the tip.

Heidi said...

I'm going to put that on my list for next week! It sounds wonderful. And who can resist a good soup (besides my 2nd born!)

Mitten Monster said...

Sounds yummylicious!!

Anonymous said...

I didn't used to like split pea soup very much, but I do now (that and lentil soup). This sounds wonderful! I'm going to see if I can get dh to grow celeriac this year. We're definitely growing celery, so can sub that in a pinch. :)

Ah, ill-fitting socks...aren't they the worst?

Shelley Ann Jones said...

Your photos are amazing! Thank you for hosting this week.

Kate said...

Yum - I'll have to rememebr this one during winter.

Austen said...

This looks great. Something tells me I'm in for a very soup-y weekend!

Boulder Furniture Cleaning said...

Hello nnice post