Split Pea Soup

Well, I hate to admit it, but I've been a slacker lately.  The holiday's were very busy and not much home cookin' was going on.  The first meal I made in 2011 was Split Pea Soup... and it turned out absolutely amazing.  And, it's so healthy and so easy to make.  Just takes some time.  It's best to make Split Pea soup with a ham bone, but if you don't have a ham bone, you can either use just chunks of ham and/or bacon.  I actually had a few pieces of bacon left over from a dish I cooked on Christmas and I threw it into the pot as well.  The recipe I'm going to list below will make a lot of soup.  I made mine in a large stockpot.  It freezes and reheats well, so if you do want to make a lot of soup, you could freeze and reheat at a later time.

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients
1 ham bone with ham on it (the more ham the better, but not an entire ham)
3 pounds dried peas
3 32oz cartons of low sodium chicken broth
4 cups water
2 large onions, diced
10 garlic cloves, minced
4 slices of applewood smoked bacon
2 1lb bags of baby carrots
1 bunch of celery, diced
2 lbs yukon gold potatoes, diced into small even pieces
salt & pepper to taste

Directions
1.  Rinse your peas and sort through, discarding of any rocks.  Dry peas.
2.  Fill your large stockpot with the chicken broth, water, dried peas, onions, garlic, ham & ham bone and bacon.  Simmer on low for about 2 hours, or until peas start to "split".
3.  Remove ham bone and cut remaining ham off bone.  Shred ham into small bite size pieces.  Set aside.
4.  Add potatoes, carrots and celery.  Cook another 2 hours, or until all veggies are soft and peas are completely split.
5.  With a stick blender, blend all veggies until everything is combined well.  There shouldn't be any large pieces of veggies.
6.  Add ham back to soup.  Add salt (or garlic salt) and pepper to taste.
7.  Serve warm :-)

Side Notes:
1.  Crisp up some fresh bacon, chop into small pieces and serve on top of the soup as a garnishment.
2.  Chop all your veggies ahead of time, so you're not scrambling to get them chopped when it's time to add them.
3.  This soup is easy, but time consuming.  Make it on a Sunday and package up small tupperwares full for lunch time.  Reheats well.

Hope you enjoy this soup as much as we did.  It was so delicious, especially on a cold rainy day.  :-)