I have a definite food style. I know right away just looking at a dish if I’m going to like it. This is why I love food blogs and cookbooks, as  I can practically taste the food as I look at it. I can actually read through a recipe and cook it in my head and know the taste and texture. Is that normal or a little bit rainman?  I just know when something is wrong, like salmon with onions (which I’ve been served before). While it’s perfectly okay to serve fried fish with a side of cole slaw, it’s so wrong to pair salmon and cabbage. While it’s more than pleasing to put an egg on top of a burger,  or with spaghetti, it doesn’t work on meatloaf. And, while it’s  just an amazing mouthful to bite into this bacon jam peanut butter biscuit burger, you can’t put peanut butter on a rib eye.

Some food combinations works well, but that doesn’t mean I like them. I do not ham and pea soup.

Before I found this recipe several years ago, I had never eaten a bowl of split pea soup. I was browsing one of my mother’s many cookbooks, and I stopped at a picture of split pea soup with portobella mushrooms in a Food and Wine publication. I quickly took note that there was no ham. It was always the ham that kept me away from split peas. I like ham sandwiches once in a while, but I’m not a ham “and” fan. Ham and eggs or ham and beans, etc. So split pea soup with ham just never appealed to me, but I could tell right away that the portobello mushrooms would be an excellent meaty vegetarian option for this classic soup.

For several weeks I would say to my mom, “I’m making split pea soup.” She would say, “Don’t forget to call me, I love split pea soup, but you have to make croutons.“ So my mother informs me that there are some rules to split pea soup. No one eats split pea soup without croutons.

For about a week I started preparing myself to delve into this soup. I bought the split peas and they sat in the bags for a week staring at me. The next week I brought home portobello mushrooms and I was committed. But then the weather got even hotter outside. So in a 99% humidity southern, summer day, I made this gorgeous, green, hearty soup.

So tell me, do you have a food combination that you just can’t stand or an unusual one that you discovered.

I would love to connect with you, share recipes, decorating ideas, good times.

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Split Pea Soup with Portobello Mushrooms

Vegetarian split pea soup with portabello mushrooms (adapted from 1998 Food and Wine, Quick From Scratch Italian)

Course Soup

Cuisine Italian

Prep Time 15 minutes minutes

Cook Time 1 hour hour

Total Time 1 hour hour 15 minutes minutes

Servings 6

Author Angela Roberts

Ingredients

• 2 cups green split peas
• 9 cups water
• 2 Onions diced
• 2 Carrots diced
• 2 Celery ribs diced
• Handful of lemon basil OR fresh tarragon
• 4 tablespoons olive oil
• 3 garlic cloves diced, 1 garlic clove for croutons
• lemon juice of 1/2 lemon and lemon zest
• 1 pound portobello mushrooms diced (no stems)
• dash crushed red pepper
• bay leaf
• black pepper
• 2 teaspoons sea salt divided
• grated pecorino to top soup

Instructions

• In heavy bottom soup pot sauté carrots, onions, garlic in some olive oil until soft about 5 minutes.
• Add peas, herbs, lemon juice, zest and water. Reduce heat until peas are tender about 35 minutes. Add 1 1/2 salt, simmer 5 more minutes. Remove bay leaf. Adjust liquid level.
• Sauté mushrooms in olive oil 5-10 minutes season with 1/2 teaspoon salt, add to soup.
• Serve with croutons and grated pecorino cheese.

Croutons

• Take crusty bread, cut into large chunky cubes, brush LIGHTLY with olive oil, roast at 400 until crispy. Remove from oven and immediately rub with garlic.

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