The Real Thing

Split Pea Soup (Betty Crocker Cookbook)

Habitant Pea Soup was a staple of my childhood, so I was pretty excited to produce the real thing, from scratch, in a an area rife with French Canadiana.

2 1/4 cups dried split peas (1 lb), sorted and rinsed 8 cups water 1/4 tsp pepper 1 lg onion 2 medium stalks celery, finely chopped 1 ham bone, 2 lbs ham shanks or 2 lbs smoked pork hocks 3 medium carrots, cut into 1/4” slices

1. Heat all ingredients except carrots to boiling in 4-quart Dutch oven, stirring occasionally; reduce heat Cover and simmer 1 hour to 1 hour 30 minutes.

By the way, smoked pork hocks look really gross. Really.

2. Remove ham bone; let stand until cool enough to handle. Remove ham from bone. Remove excess fat from ham; cut ham into 1/2” pieces.

Also, smoked pork hocks have a buttload of fat around them. Smoky, salty (delicious and hard not to stick back in the soup) fat.

3. Stir ham and carrots into soup. Heat to boiling; reduce heat. Cover and simmer about 30 minutes or until carrots are tender and soup is desired consistency.

In the end, it looked an awful lot like my post-Sunday School lunch from days gone by, but it was a little thicker and pastier than I recall. Maybe that means I’d done my French Canadian neighbours proud.

Just to be safe, I didn’t let them taste test.

Not as delicious as a Disney Movie

Stir-Fry Ratatouille (The New Lighthearted Cookbook)

My aunt’s sister used to refer to her mother’s ratatouille as rat-shit-patooie. Fitting that some few decades later Disney would come out with a movie glorifying the dish (really, I think they chose it because it’s a funny word) and its’ being made by rats.

2 tbsp canola oil 1 medium onion, sliced 2 cloves garlic, minced 8 medium mushrooms, halved 1 small sweet yellow or red pepper, cubed 2 cups cubed (1/2” pieces) unpeeled eggplant 1 small zucchini, sliced 2 tomatoes, cut in wedges 1/2 tsp each dried thyme and basil salt and pepper

In a large non-stick skillet, heat half of oil over medium-high heat; add onion, garlic, mushroom, and sweet pepper and stir-fry until tender, about 4 minutes, adding up to 2 tbsp water if needed to prevent burning. With slotted spoon, remove to side dish and set aside.

Heat remaining oil in skillet; add eggplant and zucchini; stir-fry for 4 minutes or until tender.

Screw that dirtying another dish shit. My zucchini and eggplant JOINED the mushroom mixture. No waiting until the zucchini’s “ready” for mushroom to come on the scene for my ratatouille.

Return mushroom mixture to pan, add tomatoes, thyme, and basil; cover and simmer for 5 minutes. Add salt and pepper.

You may notice a dearth of tomato on my plate. That’s because tomatoes, untouched by the heat, salt, and pulverizing of the canning process, are kinda gross. So I didn’t put them in. Nyeah.

This was ok. I’m pretty adventurous, but I still think that many iterations of eggplant are a little shifty-eyed, this one included. Conclusion: not rat shit. Also not mind-blowing.

Makes 6 servings.