Bonus Recipe: Split Pea and Ham soup

Ok, this recipe is one of my own.  It generally takes 2-3 days to make this. I don't like any other pea soup but this one.  Enjoy!

The broth/base:
Start with a bone-in ham.  Picnic ham, spiral ham, doesn't matter.   I don't start with ham bones because I want a massive amount of meat in this soup.  Make a nice ham dinner for your friends so you have the bone and lots of meat leftover.

This part is easy: Pop that meaty bone into your stockpot, cover it completely with water, slap the lid on and cook the ever loving bejeezus out of it until the meat falls off the bone and the marrow is spreadable like melted butter.

I usually let this cook overnight, so it's really Day 2 by the time I start making the soup.  Pull all the meat off and leave in the stock, and toss the bones. That's the first day.If you extra stock beyond what you will use for your soup, you can freeze the rest.  I like to freeze it in batches just big enough to fill my crockpot about 2/3 - 3/4 of the way. 

Huge chucks of ham make this soup extra yummy!

The soup:
Put meat and ham stock into your crockpot filling it about 2/3 - 3/4 full.  I don't use measurements when I cook, just  proportions and ratios.  Everything scales that way.  Ok, so add 1/2-1 bag of dried split green peas to your soup base, 12oz of the beer of your preference, and sugar.  Salt & pepper, naturally.  That's it.

For the sugar, I usually just cup  my hand and measure it in my palm, but I think that it's about 3-4 tbsp is a good estimation.  Besides, I don't know how big your hands are.  Or where they've been.

Let that bad boy cook on low overnight.  The next day around lunchtime, all the peas should be a big pasty delicious mass infused with delicious ham goodness and ginormous chunks of meat.

Cheers!