Yellow Split Pea and Pumpkin Soup

 

My apologies for the blogging hiatus.  We've got quite a bit of backlog here at LND, so in no particular order here we go!

Soup.  Perfect for the winter.  I've had the last of a bag of yellow split peas for the past 2 years, and wanted to finally get rid of them, so I opted to make this soup I made with the split peas 2 years ago.  This is also great if you've got a leftover can of pumpkin in your pantry from the holidays that never quite turned into a pie.  

The most time consuming part of this soup is soaking the peas in broth.  I used vegetable, but in the past I've used chicken broth.  I emptied 2 cans of broth into a pot, and added about 3/4 cup of split peas. 

Also in the past, I've chopped 1/4 of a large onion and put it in the broth with the peas, but I sadly had no onion this time.  After about an hour and a half the peas will look like above...still a little crunchy but much softer than before.  At this point I added the can of pumpkin, some pepper, and thyme and cooked for another 45 minutes.

Next I spiced it up.  I added some powdered saffron, but you should throw in whatever you have/like.  No need to blend this soup since the ingredients are so mushy.  I added about 1/8 cup of cream because that's what I do, but it would taste just fine without the cream.  I feel like this would also work with squash and/or green split peas.  And if you wanted to throw some carrots in maybe?  Go wild with your winter soups!