SNOW!!!

Wow can't believe we're well into December now, we've had a foot of snow and I've not posted for ages.

Well I'm recovering well, going back to work after the weekend and starting the cardio re-hab course at hospital in a few weeks. But what about all this snow then. It started on Tuesday and didn't stop for 2 days, it's certainly the most I've seen for a while. Of course everything ground to a halt, buses, trains, cars, schools and the kids enjoyed 3 days off. Can't remember ever having to have a day off school because it snowed, got sent home once cause the oil lorry couldn't get through for the heating but even then the upper school stayed.

Its definitely time for another winter soup, and today its going to be pea and ham. Terribly easy and very delicious. There are different ways of adding the ham, use either a couple of gammon steaks or stick in a whole joint of ham, it depends really on the quantity you are making. Its also a fab way of using up odds and ends after cooking a ham. When you boil a piece of ham save the stock to use for this soup, thats what I've done here.

Pea and Ham Soup.

The stock from a boiled ham. (If you can get a hock thats fab and you can use the meat for the soup too.
Ham off cuts.
2 onions
Half a pack of dried peas. (you can use big yellow lentils for this if you can't get dried peas)
Knob of butter
Salt and pepper.

• Roughly chop the onions and fry in the butter until golden brown. Add the peas and then the stock and probably some water depending how much stock you have. Dont worry it will boil down and you'll still get the flavour.

• Chop the ham up and add to the soup saving a hand full for later.

• Bring to the boil and simmer for several hours, adding more water as needed until the peas are c cooked and mushy.

• Using a hand blender, the type you can put into the pan, blend the soup to break up the peas and but don't go mad, you don't want a smooth soup. Of course if you do want a smooth soup then keep blending until you're happy with it.

• Season the soup and add the reserved chopped ham to chunk the soup up a bit.

And thats it really, go easy on the salt until the end as ham stock is usually quite salty. I serve this with chunks of wholemeal bread and a good cheese and its flipping lovely.