The Yum Yum Factor

Some days I feel lazy. I don't want to haul out my spice bins, measure out a whack of them to make my own curry but I am starving and I just want to eat ASAP. I might be out of homemade chicken stock too so I will often just grab a box of my emergency stash of chicken broth (low sodium Campbell's for the most part) from the pantry and bag of curry powder. In the days of yore, this soup would have taken far too long for a last minute meal, requiring over an hour to simmer, but with a pressure cooker, suddenly it's doable for lunch. From the very start of chopping to the minute you lift the lid and ladle the soup into your bowl, you will squeak in just under the 30 minute mark, tops, under 25 minutes if you rush it with a ten minute NPR. My regular Indian Split Pea Soup takes an hour and a half to cook  Today, I was lucky to find a leek, a half of a giant head of cauliflower to use in place of potato so that my soup can have that thick heartiness that potato gives...

After I make ham for Easter I am always left with this big, meaty bone and a meaty bone means soup. It's always a toss up between black bean soup or split pea soup because we all love them equally. What with the lentil contest last month, I have been all about the lentils lately so split peas won out this time and I ended up making a straight up, old fashioned split pea soup.  My grandmother made an insanely good pea soup and my mom said that growing up in her very Catholic household, they ate pea soup and fish every Friday. I didn't have the heart to tell her that pea soup that includes a big old hambone does NOT qualify as meatless but then I realized that vegetarian back then only meant that you didn't plunk an actual hunk of meat on the dinner table. If you only used meat in the broth, you were good to go for Friday so meaty soup and fish was the go to meatless meal in most French Canadian homes.  The only thing I did that differed from the split soup I wou...

This is probably going to be my last big pot of soup until fall comes and it's a really great, simple soup to end the soup season with. Split pea soup is kind of like the Toyota Carolla of soups. Not super exiting, not the sexiest but dependable, well made and always delicious and it gets great mileage in the city. After I made the ham for Easter  , I was left with this big, beautiful  ham bone and nobody in their right mind can throw out a delicious ham bone. Basically, it  was either going to be black bean soup or split pea soup and since I have been all about the indian lentils lately,  split peas won out this time. I spent a few minutes thinking of all the things I could add and do to make it new and exiting but, in the end, I made a straight up, old fashioned split pea soup. The only thing I did that differed from the split soup I would have eaten growing up was to use half green split peas and half yellow and it was perfect. I really like yellow spl...

I am beginning to think I am having a soup identity crisis lately. I am usually ALL about the soup and have no trouble finding soups that speak to me but lately, nothing looks that good. Maybe it's because we haven't really had much in the way of winter weather. It's been mild, we haven't really had any snow that has stuck around for more than a day and if you didn't know what month it was, you would have sworn that we have spent the last 4 months enjoying the very first moments of spring. I find it difficult to get all fired up about making comforting, cold weather foods without the cold weather part and find my mind wandering to Toronto summery thoughts of wood fires, bbqs, wine on the front porch and garbage strikes. The only things that have been interesting me seem to be Thai coconutty soups or Indian flavoured soups  so I thought it was time to bust out the yellow split peas for some daal. It's not a ground breaking soup by any means but it is simp...