Yellow Split Pea and Sweet Potato Soup

Remember those tests in grade school where if you looked the whole thing over first, you were told at the end to not answer any question just put your pencil down?  I usually was the last to catch on and put my pencil down.  That was a good thing for this recipe because if I had read, Dairy free, Gluten free, low sodium, Vegan, Vegetarian, and Wheat free, I probably would have passed it by.  I was actually half way through the cooking time before I realized that salt and pepper were not in the ingredients.  I added salt and pepper.  I do understand the dangers of over salting, but we need salt.  This pea soup was every bit as good as the pea soup with the smoked pig’s food I made earlier.  This recipe was brought to my attention by my cousin the vegetable hater.  She recently had her gall bladder out and is changing her eating habits.  I thought if she likes this, it must be really good.  It was.  The recipe actually comes from the Whole Foods Market website. 

Ingredients:

8 ½ C water

1 large onion

1 T freshly grated ginger

2 C dried yellow split peas (my bag was mixed green and yellow, it was all I could find)

2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into ½” cubes

1/2C toasted pumpkin seeds

Directions:

1.      Bring ½ C water to simmer in a large saucepot over medium-high heat. 

2.      Add onion and cook about 5 minutes or until translucent.  Stir in ginger and cook 1 minute, stirring.

3.      Add remaining 8 C water, peas and sweet potato cubes.  Bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to a simmer, cover and simmer for 1 hour.

4.      Uncover and continue to simmer for 15 more minutes.  Carefully puree soup with a hand held immersion blender or in batches in a food processor until smooth and creamy. 

5.      Garnish with pumpkin seeds.