Pea & Ham Soup is better than you

It's May, so it's starting to get cold again here in Melbsy, which is my annoying way of saying Melbs, which is everybody else's annoying way of saying Melbourne. So obviously my mind turns to warmth, because my mind is a frickin genius. And within warmth lies our biological need for soup. And within my biological need for soup lies my pathological need to not spend any money, because I don't have any money.
Luckily, soup is cheap! And satisfying. Well, it can be when you don't fuck it up. And even luckier is that it is very hard to fuck it up. Unless YOU are a fuck up. But then a fuck up fucking up the unfuckupable would be pretty much par for the course, so lets not count unhatched eggs as anything but eggs.

If you're looking for cheap, hearty and soupy, Pea & Ham Soup is all of those things. It is my absolute favourite soup in the world ever. It has all the things I need from a soup. It's thick, it's aromatic, it's meaty, it's pea-y and it reminds me of my childhood. It's a lot to ask from a soup. But there is more. It's cheap, there are only a few ingredients, some of which can be left out altogether if you want, and it will still turn a great result, and blokes will love it.

I was in ALDI. Because who doesn't love a bargain product with a similar name and font to a big name product but with a better price tag? Seriously, the doors to ALDI are a portal to a world very similar to ours but with no recognisable brands. The other day I bought some "Chazoo's" Cheesy Bacon Balls. Not Cheeto's. Chazoo's. Like the name, they were almost the same but not quite as good . Anyway, I saw Ham Hocks in ALDI so I grabbed a big one for the very good price of $3.61. Then I looked around for split peas but they didn't have any. Laptops, weights and Chazoo's Burger Hoops, sure, but no split peas. Makes sense.

In Woolies, the split peas were $1.66. (The Ham Hocks were WAAAAAY more expensive than ALDI bee tee dubs) Awesome. And as a bonus, the recipe for Pea & Ham Soup is on the back of the pea packet. It includes a bunch of other stuff like onion, carrots, celery and bay leaves which are ALL negotiable. Especially as the recipe says to do some stuff that I disagree with, like puree-ing the soup at the end. FUCK OFF.

You can cook this in a big pot or a slow cooker if you like (I went the slow cooker option because it requires less attention). Chuck the ham hock and split peas in the pot with 12 cups of water. Add a bay leaf, a chicken stock cube, a chopped onion and IF YOU WANT, I DIDNT BOTHER, 2 or 3 chopped up carrots and celery sticks. The reason I didn't bother is because I don't want to have to puree the soup at the end. It should be ready just from cooking it, fuck making more mess and delaying the eating process.

Then you can just leave it on a low heat (Low setting on the Slow Cooker) for ages and then come back and stir it every once in a while. Like, seriously 8 hours. BUT if you are cooking it in a big stove-top pot, be very careful not to leave it for too long without stirring it because the peas can burn to the bottom of the pan and then, yes, that will have fucked it up.

Then, after ages, when it resembles primordial sludge, it's ready.

It's ready.

Just remove all the ham bones and the skin, toast up some old bread, butter the shit out of it and go to fucking town.

This is a lot of soup. It freezes well but I don't recommend doing that. Just leave it in the pot and reheat as required. If you find it gets too thick and congeals, just add a cup or two of water in the reheating process and its good as gold. Good onya.

Coconut Curry Chicken with extras

Hello. Yes, its been a while, I know. Ive been busy living my life. But now things have stabilised and I'm cooking again. Which is great. As you might remember, I like to do simple but hearty stuff when I cook. I'm not averse to using simmer sauces and pre-made marinades because they are often quite good and will save you a stack of time.

I think it would be a fun experiment to buy things in packets and then to make the recipes on the back of them strictly to the recipe to see how good or bad they are. Hmm... nah. I've already got too many blogs.

A few weeks ago, as part of a promotion for something else, I was sent some Nando's marinades and sauces and other cool stuff. And Ive been dying to try the Coconut Curry Chicken cooking sauce the most. Just so you know, Nando's didnt ask me to cook this and write a blog to promote their stuff, I just wanted to. And just so you know, the rest of their product has been really good, so I have high hopes for the curry.

So the directions sound easy enough. Brown 500g chicken, add capsicum (recipe says to use Red but I've only got green) and green beans. But as I like to "enhance" a recipe, I am also adding some pumpkin because it goes brilliantly in curry and I've also got a little leftover broccoli, so that's going in too. First off, I cubed the pumpkin into dice-sized bits and fried it in some oil (and salt) until it was brown and a little softer.

Yes, its awesome to eat like this.

Then after browning off the chook (which I cut into strips instead of cubes like the menu says) I put everything in a deepish frypan (deeper than a frypan, not quite a wok. I should work in advertising) and turned down the temp (not the Tempo, that's different) to allow the whole lot to simmer for the required 12 minutes. Good timing because microwave rice takes 11 minutes. Considering the prep took about 10 minutes, this is a quick and easy dinner.

End result - BOOYA!

I've cooked with all the different sauces and marinades from Nando's (that I was given) and this was the best result so far. This was delicious! In terms of curry-typing, this was closer to a sweet Thai style curry than an Indian curry, and the chili was only Medium. For a pre-made "jar of sauce" product this was an excellent dish. Nando's Perinaise is also awesome and not just on chips. I used it in a salad instead of caesar sauce and it was fantastic.

Baked Sweet Potatoes.

Winter. As a season, I like it. And as a season, it presents opportunities. Such as Sweet Potatoes being in season. Sweet potatoes, as the name suggests, are sweet. And although the name also suggests they are potatoes they are actually a very distant cousin to the Potato. In some ways they're BETTER. Maybe they're not as versatile over-all but they do have some different properties that make them more attractive for using in old ways.
My favourite of these old ways is as a Baked Potato. Baked potatoes are a winter favourite comfort food that are cheap and easy and a total crowd pleaser. Normal Baked Potatoes rely on the toppings you throw on them but Sweet Potatoes have a flavour of their own and have an awesome caramelisation quality if you cook them well enough (almost burn/burn, whatever).
So, baked potatoes. Bay Po's. BPs. Beeps. Everyone likes something different on theirs and I'm the same. But when I make BPs, what it usually means is - I have potatoes and a bunch of stuff in the fridge that needs to be used.

Whatever's left over in the fridge + pantry basics = Good Tucker

The prep is important here - chuck the oven on first to get it ready. The potatoes will take about an hour to cook if you only use the oven but they're worth waiting for. You can cheat and pre-cook them for a couple of minutes in the microwave if you want, it'll save you half an hour. The important thing with any baked potato is the outer crust - you cant cheat this bit, it just wont work any other way than oven-baking.
With normal potatoes, I just wash them, stick a fork in them a few times and put them in the oven. But with Sweet Potatoes, I prefer to peel them because sometimes the skin is hit & miss and blemishes can be bigger than they seem. No-one likes to eat a blemish. Also remember that because of their shape (longer and thinner than potatoes) and a slightly different texture, they will cook more quickly.

Method - Put it in the oven til you reckon its ready.

While its cooking, get your toppings ready. You can put almost anything on a baked potato and not go too far wrong. I'm not suggesting caviar or otter snot or anything too El Bulli, but regulation fridge and pantry stuff is spot on. My personal choices usually include sliced bacon, grated cheese, corn, coleslaw, cubed beetroot, warmed baked beans and one or two other bits as appropriate.

One of my favourite super-easy baked potato varieties is just the potato and one of those tins of Tuna with Sweetcorn & Mayonnaise ("I Love Coles" brand tuna is only 90c right now BARGAIN). Any of the flavoured tuna varieties would probably go alright, just melt some cheese on top and its awesome.

The BPs are a meal on their own, but they go really well as a side.
Particularly to a scotch fillet (Pork!)

I almost always include a bit of butter or garlic butter as a foundation. When the potatoes are ready, cut them open and mash the potato a little bit with a fork. Then put the butter on the potato and it will melt in brilliantly.Then chuck whatever else you have prepared on top, grab a fork and smash it down your face.

Enjoy!

"Country Style" Pea & Ham Soup

If tinned soup has taught me anything, its that country people are too lazy to chop vegetables into small pieces. I'm OK with lazy (aka energy efficient) and chunky is good when it comes to soup. In Winter there is nothing better than coming in from the cold to the smell of a soup that has been simmering away for hours. And even better is polishing off a big bowl of steaming, chunky, hearty soup with some fresh bread and butter. My particular favourite is Pea & Ham.

Right now supermarkets are all over the hearty winter ingredients and they are cheaper than chips, which are unusually expensive given they're made of fucking potatoes and that one packet of chips contains roughly one potato which would otherwise cost you fuck-all and a pinch of chicken salt worth 2c. This soup really only has two main ingredients - a bag of Split peas will cost you $1 and Smoked Ham Hock. You can use bacon bones instead and they're about the same price per kg but they don't yield nearly as much meat, so stick with the hock. You only really need one big hock. I bought one medium sized hock for $4.38.

The split peas will have a recipe for Pea & Ham Soup on the back of the packet because Pea & Ham soup is the only recipe in the world with split peas in it except for plain Split Pea soup which even vegetarians and doomed pigs think is boring. The good news is that the packet recipe is fine. But it's better with a few amendments.

Just Three Ingredients! If you want.

For the simplest version, you can literally just use the peas, the hock and about 8 cups of water. But it can be made even more awesome with some simple extras thrown in. Instead of just water, I also like to use a little bit of stock - it adds depth. It also adds "sounding wanky" if you mention it out loud or on a blog. I also put in salt, pepper and a bay leaf. Easy. If you have a family and want to extend it or sneak some vegies into your kids, add a chopped onion and two diced carrots.

Chop It Up. Here's a photograph I prepared earlier.

Some people, including the back of the pea packet (wait, that's not people) will tell you to pre-cook the peas but this soup is best slow-simmered over a few hours so there is no way they wont be cooked anyway, so skip it. Chuck all the ingredients into a big pot over high heat on the stove until it boils. Then turn the heat down and simmer it.

It will look like a pot full of uncooked ingredients. Do not eat it yet.

Show me simmering, baby!

Simmer it for a few hours. You'll need to stir it occasionally, but just to make sure that nothing is sticking to the bottom of the pot. It will slowly but surely thicken and the meat will come away from the bone.

When the skin has come away from the meat you can take it out and give it to your dog, who will love you forever.

Some recipes say to take the meat out and cut it into cubes, put the stick blender in and give it a whiz or some will say to run the soup through a sieve or but I don't bother with any of it. If it has been cooked for long enough, the peas will have broken down and the meat will have fallen clean off the bones. It's extra work that you can just skip if you have time to leave it simmering away for longer. You will occasionally get small bits of bone in the soup but if that really bothers you, maybe you should just take a long hard look at your life. How do you think the pig feels? Toughen up.

A couple of hours later, when the soup looks like swamp filth, take out the bones and the bay leaves - it's  ready. It will be thick, it will be meaty and it will be awesome.

Put the win in Winter.

Hint! This soup gets thicker the longer you cook it. If it gets too sludgy, just add water to bring it back to a consistency you prefer. It also congeals when you put it in the fridge. The best thing to do is just to add a little water before you reheat it and it will come up a treat.

And was it cheap? My oath! The split peas were $1, the hock was $4.38, one onion was about 20c and two carrots at about 20c each means that my outlay was about $6. The rest of the ingredients came from the pantry (bay leaves, stock, S&P). This should feed a family of five well. Thrift!!

COMING UP - When life gives you lemons, make lemon curd. And then have it on pancakes.