...pea and ham soup

Today has been my last day of annual leave. Really not looking forward to going back to work tomorrow and so have totally made the most of today. We have a lovely garden centre near me called Squires and they have a fab aquatic/small animal centre so I went and spent some time being mesmerised by the fish. They also (in the main garden centre) sell lots of crafty stuff. I'm thinking of making my own Christmas cards this year so I went and checked out their card making section. Ended up buying a book to give me some ideas. I'm a real instruction follower and although I make lots of things, I'm not great at coming up with the ideas on my own so wanted some ideas on where to start and the bits of equipment I need. Then this afternoon I've been making a pair of trousers for my holiday later in the year. They'll be up on here once they're finished. This evening though I'm working my way through the veg from Leigh and Dad. I figure that even if I do have to go back to work tomorrow, I can have my favourite soup for lunch. I've never actually made it before, I've always bought it from Waitrose! But with the lovely fresh peas I decided I'd give it a go.

Pea and ham soup. Yum yum yum!!

I didn't make it complicated, starting off with a finely chopped red onion which I cooked somewhat too fast and shall we say caramelised it!

Then I added in the peas and a stock cube and some water and left it to boil for around 10 minutes (while I ate my dinner!)...

Then I tipped it all in my trusty blender along with some extra water and blended until smooth.

I'd hoped to buy some ham hock from Waitrose which is amazingingly tasty but they didn't have any when I went shopping on Monday. As such, I bought their smoked ham instead.

This is also really good. It comes in two packs and as I'd already used one in cheese and ham toasties for lunch yesterday and today, I added half of the remaining pack whilst the soup was blending and then once that was done, stirred in the remainder at the end. I've no idea on the quantity of peas, I would guess I used around 300g but it made this much soup!

The large tub will do me for lunch tomorrow and Friday and the small tub I think will be my late night snack tomorrow as I have a work event in the evening which probably will only be nibbles and I'll be starving when I get in!