Split Pea Soup and Other Stories

For as long as I can remember, two things immediately come to mind when I hear "Pea Soup".  The first being "Peeea Sooooup" from The Rescuers Down Under and the second, this overwhelming feeling that pea soup is going to be gross.  In my effort to provide myself with nutritious and easy lunches, I came across a split pea soup recipe in my new Weight Watchers cookbook, the first few times I glossed over it, but then I caught myself wondering why I thought split pea soup sounded so unappetizing.  I have never tried it, in fact I didn't even know what split peas were or if they were the same as regular peas.  Turns out split peas are classified as legumes and peas are vegetables. Split peas are starchier and have been dried, but it seems that they come from the same plant.  Anyone who knows otherwise is welcome to correct me in the comments section for this post.  So I bravely made my pea soup and hoped that I was going to like it because it made eight- 1 Cup servings.  After soaking my peas for an hour and letting my soup simmer for another hour (turns out it takes a loooong time to cook split peas) I successfully completed my soup and was ready to try it.

I honestly had to brace myself and force myself to take the first bite, so engrained in my mind that I wasn't going to like it.  After a few bites, I decided it was better without the cheese and took the cheese out of my soup.  It tasted beanie.  It was okay, not great but not as bad as I thought.  Actually the second day it was much better and by the third day I was thinking that I would make it again!  Time must have allowed the flavors to mix, either that or it was an acquired taste. Either way, Chloe loved it from the get go!

Lily on the other hand, my picky eater, didn't want anything to do with the mysterious green soup and asked repeatedly if we could make strawberry pancakes, an idea she has been obsessing over since watching an episode of "Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood" where they make strawberry pancakes.  She was stoked to make them and actually ate almost all of them.  It's pretty rare that Lily actually finishes any of her food.

It must have been a soupy kind of day because I also made some sweet potato soup to go with dinner for the week.  I figured it would make a good side dish to go with most of our meals.  This is about the time Matt decided he wasn't too big on soup and told me he didn't really like soup much.  Talk about timing! Now I have 16 servings of soup and only me and Chloe who will eat it!  So I did the only logical thing, I froze half of each soup for later! 

So now I don't have to make lunch for quite some time and I even have left overs for another day so I don't get too tired of eating the same thing!  I'm going to have to start pulling things out of our freezer now, it's getting quite full with all the frozen meat and veggies and soup that is now in there!

All in all I would call it a success!  Let me know your favorite healthy soups!