Soup

Pea and Ham soup

~ desertcook ~ Leave a comment

This is one of my favourite winter soups. I make a huge batch of it, eat it for dinner, then freeze some and eat the leftovers for days afterwards for lunch. Yum!

It is a very imprecise recipe but very forgiving!

Not a nice job, but there is plenty of meat on the hock.
Not a nice job, but there is plenty of meat on the hock.
  • 1 ham hock (about 800g)
  • 3-4 celery sticks, chopped
  • 3-4 carrots, chopped
  • 3 potatoes, chopped, skin on is fine (OR 1 large sweet potato, peeled)
  • 2 cups of dry soup mix (see below)
  • approx 2 L water

The dry soup mix is one I make up in bulk at the start of winter. It is made up of  1 quarter each of green, red and yellow dried spilt peas and 1/4 barley. It is actually the background picture for our blog 🙂

Place the ham hock in the bottom of the slow cooker. Add in the veggies and the soup mix.

Add water to cover the hock and to the capacity of the slow cooker.

Cover with lid and cook on low for 5-6 hours.

Then (this is the bit that almost makes me go vegetarian each time I do it!), remove ham hock from the pot and replace lid.

Pull ham off the bone and finely chop.

Return to the soup, stir well and cook on low for a further 1-2 hours.

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You made want to add salt depending on the hock you have used (some are less salty than others).

Enjoy 🙂

Mum’s minestrone

~ desertcook ~ Leave a comment

We have just returned home from an 8 day family camping trip through the interior of Australia. It was just amazing …. but after 8 days of camping food I have been hanging out for some serious serves of veggies!

And since the weather is finally getting a little cooler, soups are back on the menu- Hooray!

This is my mum’s minestrone, the one that I have eaten since childhood and I still adore it … I am just sad that I can no longer sprinkle it with cheese while it’s hot!

  • 1tbsp garlic olive oil
  • 1 brown onion, finely diced
  • 4 rashers of short cut bacon, diced1-Blog 005
  • 10 cups Masssel chicken stock made with boiling water
  • 4 celery sticks, finely sliced
  • 4 carrots, finely sliced
  • 2 tins corn kernels
  • 2 tins kidney beans
  • 4 ripe tomatoes, finely diced (or 2 tins diced tomatoes)
  • spiral pasta of choice (we use a GF one)
  • 2tsp fresh ‘Italian’ herbs*, finely chopped

* I use whatever is growing in my garden; rosemary, thyme, oregano, parsley etc. You could also use a tsp of a dried Italian herb mix.

Heat oil in the base of a large saucepan (I am luck enough to own an 11L saucepan so I love making a huge batches) and fry the onion and bacon.

Add the herbs.

Add the stock and bring to the boil

Add the veggies and simmer for 15 minutes.

Add a few handfuls of pasta and cook until it is soft.

Serve hot (and sprinkle it with grated cheese if you can!).

This makes enough for about 10-12 serves and keeps in the fridge for about a week.

This one can easily be made vegan by removing the bacon

If you make huge batches of soup like I do, it’s helpful to refrigerate them individually. If you want to freeze, it is best to stop the recipe before you add the pasta as it tends to absorb too much water and get quite soggy on defrosting. Just add the pasta part when reheating.

Enjoy 🙂