I think I remember my mom cooking split pea soup sometimes.  I remember spinning past the split peas and lentils in the lazy susan cupboard on my way to the chocolate chips.  So if we had them we must have eaten them sometimes.  I’m pretty sure her version involved ham and my dad adding ketchup to his bowl.

When I was buying lentils for my SNAP challenge, the split peas caught my eye and stuck in my mind until a later shopping trip.   I couldn’t stray from my shopping list or that week’s menu, but I did look up a vegetarian split pea soup recipe to hang on to until a later week.  The one I found had an incredibly short list of ingredients  and looked simply delicious!  Even though the list was short and simple, I still managed to not have everything, thanks to our pantry challenge to empty the cupboards before we move.   So I will share the version I made.  Click on the title of the recipe to see the original.

Vegetarian Split Pea Soup

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 onion, diced
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
• 1 bag split peas (just over 2 cups)
• 5 cups water
• 1 bouillion cube
• 1/4 cup orange juice

Garnish

• Smoked paprika
• Lemon infused olive oil

1. Heat olive oil in a large soup pot and cook the onions with the salt until the onions are soft, about a minute or two.

2. Add the split peas and water, remembering to check the split peas for rocks!  (I missed one, oops!)  Bring the soup to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes.  After the 20 minutes, add the orange juice a little at a time, tasting it as you go until the soup is as bright as you like it.

3. Blend all but a cup of the soup, either with a hand blender or in a regular blender.  More water or stock can be added at this time if the soup is too thick.

4. Ladle the soup into the bowls and sprinkle with some smoked paprika and drizzle with some lemon infused olive oil.  Enjoy!

The first time I served this soup, I served it alongside the Stuffed and Roasted Acorn Squash which I shared last week.  It actually held its own against the stuffed squash, which is really impressive considering how delicious that dish was.  Later in the week, we ate the soup again with a simple orzo salad which allowed the soup to really shine.  This soup has really surprised me by how good it is with such a simple recipe.  It really is a potential weekday soup that could be made pretty quickly.  The husband did encourage more lemon flavor, which means next time I might go back to the original recipe and use the half a lemon’s worth of lemon juice instead of the orange juice.  Keeping the lemon infused oil.  Yum!