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Pea and ham soup success!

After the Christmas ham is finished, the traditional next step is to make pea and ham soup.  Every time I have ever made pea and ham soup it has come out thick and gluggy and yuck.  So this time I really really wanted it to work!  I followed both the recipe here and the recipe for lentil soup in Nourishing Traditions, and I ignored Edmonds cookbook for once.  Following an actual recipe has got to help, right?
  • I soaked 3 cups of split green beans for 8 hours in a pot of cold water and 2 Tsp of whey


  • simmered small ham bone in a big soup pot for 2 hours


  • added drained peas and cooked until peas were totally dissolved (about 2 hrs)

  • sautéed onion, carrot and silver beet stalks (had no celery!) and added to soup

  • cooked it all for a bit longer and then blended soup with stick blender 

  • crossed fingers that this time it would taste nice!  And it did, but I have no idea why it worked this time because I can't remember what I did last time.  I suspect that I used the "quick method" to prepare the peas, lesson learnt, never ever use a quick method, it will not be as good as the proper method.  I will be following this method again in future.  Husband was amazed that it took ALL day to make the soup while he was being so productive at work (just jealous that I had a day off), although much of the time I wasn't actually physically involved in the soup making, just waiting between steps.  Anyway, I now have several litres of delicious soup in the freezer, which should be very nice in winter.  
Do you make pea and ham soup?  What's your secret?
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