Golden Orange Soup

Well, the squash coconut casserole takes on a funny smell/taste after the first day. Still tastes good, but the smell is weird. I think it's the sage. J wouldn't eat much of it today at lunch, but she did eat the chili! D said she was "nursing her orange juice the whole time" but she ate a whole bowl of chili. :)

I ate another serving of the casserole, with plenty of black pepper and salt, for dinner. Lots of pepper totally masked the "sagey" taste/smell, so maybe it just needed more salt and pepper? Something to consider for the next time. I started dinner with this salad -- fresh tomatoes (thanks to my m-i-l), clover sprouts, chopped golden yellow squash, and the remainder of my nut sauce. Nutty and yummy.

So, I can't rely on leftovers for J to eat tomorrow. I have to make something new, even though I'm supposed to be working (I'm reading cases, yes I am!). I have a meal planned for when I have some time this week, but tonight's not it. She likes my mom's pea soup, so I thought I'd make that...but I don't have any green peas. So, I'm making a golden soup for her. It's based on a recipe I found years ago (maybe 2000?) in my food co-op's newsletter (I think) and my mom's great pea soup. I had yellow split peas on hand, but no parsnips (required for the circa-2000 pea soup recipe), and didn't have the green peas (required for my mom's recipe). I like pea soups because they are easy to put together, easy to cook, and taste great! Here's my new recipe:

Golden Orange Soup serves 8 (I am ambitious!)


Ingredients
1 lb organic carrots, peeled and chopped (2 1/2 - 3 cups)
2 cups frozen chopped celery (prepped before we went to Maryland a few weeks ago)
1 lb split yellow peas, picked over
8 cups water
4 bay leaves (I grew and dried these myself!)

What To Do
Teach D how to pick over beans, peas, and lentils, looking for small stones and any weird looking beans. (Take them out!) Put peas in large LeCreuset.
Peel and chop the carrots. Take the celery out of the freezer and portion out 2 cups. Add both carrots and celery to LeCreuset.
Add 8 cups of water and stir everything together. Add the bay leaves.
Turn on to medium heat and cover. Cook for an hour or so, uncovering after 30-40 minutes. Stir as needed to keep everything cooking and keep the peas from sticking to the bottom of the pan. Also, remove foam as needed. The peas should start to fall apart after approximately an hour. (Work in kitchen and enjoy the yummy smell; remember to stir between cases.)
Take bay leaves out and puree soup with immersion blender. I missed one of the bay leaves, and ended up with little pieces of chopped bay leaves after blending.
Enjoy with salt and black pepper. :)

Thoughts
This could be made in the slow cooker too, but we still have chili in it, so it wasn't an option for me.
I have to find my mom's pea soup recipe! :) Fall and winter mean pea soup. And chili. And pea soup. I feel like my mom's recipe had another spice or something in it that added to the taste of the soup...Mom?
And I really wish I had someone to share cookies with! I can't justify making cookies because I will eat them all up...just like I do with the bags of chocolate chunks that I buy every time I find them at the KeyFood...