Green Pea Soup

This is another quick and easy mid-week dinner. It's nice because you would usually have the ingredients on hand. I had it all ready to go, and then we took the dog for a walk and went to see the sunset on the beach. So it had to wait, but it still tasted good!

Ingredients:

1 lb of green peas

4 cups of broth

1-2 stalks of celery (chopped)

1-2 shallots (chopped)

2-3 cloves of garlic (minced)

4-5 leaves of mint

1/2 tsp curry powder

salt & pepper

Method:

In large pot heat the olive oil and add the shallots and chopped celery until soft, about 5 minutes or so. Then add the garlic, you don't want to burn the garlic because then it will become bitter. Add the peas with curry powder, mint leaves, stir it around a little warming the peas, salt and pepper it. Add the broth, you can use 3 cups if you like a thicker soup, you can always add more if you like. As always you can adjust the seasoning to your liking and omit any, like the curry powder. I used such a small amount it didn't over take the mint in it.

Once the broth is added cook until everything is heated through and the peas are cooked.
In a blender, puree the soup in 2 batches until very smooth, being careful with the hot liquid not to splatter yourself. I used my immersion blender, but it didn't get it real smooth. The garlic was minced small enough so I didn't get big chunks of that, and I liked it with a little texture to it.

This is such a quick, easy and tasty dish! It would be a brighter green, but I didn't have any chicken or veggie broth, so I used beef broth. I was surprised it still turned out nice and fresh tasting. You can top it with yogurt, fresh mint or like I did with some crisp pancetta.

I saved some of the pancetta that I used making Pancetta Fontina Biscuits. We had the biscuits with the soup, I'll post that recipe later. Maranda liked it, she even had seconds. I always like to judge if the recipes are a success on her. Wade likes most everything except cucumbers and green peppers, so he doesn't count. (You know what I mean)

What would you serve with this soup?

You could serve the soup cold. I'm not a big fan of cold soups, so mine was hot!