My So-Called Homeschool

I don’t know about you, but I’ve never met a recipe I couldn’t tweak.  It could be Rachel Ray or BAM! Emeril himself, I would find some way to change the recipe.  Usually it’s not because I can make it better, but because there’s something I didn’t buy or didn’t have on hand when I wanted to make it.  This week, I decided that split pea soup sounded really good as the weather has gotten colder and damper.  I remembered that The Headmistress had a recipe that really looked good.  So off I went and copied it to my recipe file on Google Documents.  Here’s the original:

1 1/2 cup finely chopped onion
3 cup split peas
6 diced potatoes
15 cups water
1 1/2 cup parmesan cheese
1-2 t. salt In a large stock pot brown the onions in a small amount of oil. Add everything else but the parmesan cheese to the stock pot (rinse your split peas first). Bring to a boil, reduce heat, simmer 45 minutes. Puree the soup in a blender or use an immersion blender (I inherited mine and I love it). Add parmesan cheese and serve.
This serves 10-12- add the bread and perhaps some fruit or carrots sticks and you can stretch it a bit more. You can also add grated carrots to the soup (grated they will cook faster) and thin it with water if you need to. Naturally, it will taste even better if you add some ham to it, or at least a ham bone for flavor.

 . . . and the tweak . . .

One onion chopped finely — probably only about a cup
2 1/2 cups split peas - that’s how much is in a 1lb bag
4-5 redskin potatoes chopped not peeled
9 cups water — all that fit in the crockpot after I put in the giant hambone
Held the parm cheese.  Actually I tried some on my serving and didn’t care for it, no one else even wanted to try.
Only added about 1/2 tsp of salt – the ham was REALLY salty.

Sauteed the onion in a skillet.  Threw them with everything else into the crockpot.  The hambone was straight from the freezer, so I turned it up to high for about 3 hours, until the water boiled, then down to low for about 5 more hours.  Pulled out the hambone, the meat just fell off!  Then I took my Braun hand blender, smushed everything up a little bit and there we were.  It was delicious!!!  It was a little thinner than I usually make split pea soup, so next time I’ll probably use a little less water.  Other than that it’s a keeper.  Even Monkey Boy declared it good!!!

My next tweak was this evening.  Now that autumn is here for good, a good hot drink is just what we need.  I really love Russian Tea, but I don’t keep instant tea — or Tang — on hand.  Again, the Common Room had a recipe.  Unfortunately I didn’t have most of the ingredients for the original she lists.  But Terri’s (scroll down to the teacup) seemed to have mostly stuff I had on hand.  Here’s the original: 

Try this: In your stock pot, bring to a boil two quarts of water with two cinnamon sticks and a heaping teaspoon of whole cloves. Remove from heat and add 10 tea bags. Cheap black tea is the best. Cover and allow to steep for 5 minutes or more. Add the juice of one lemon, a large can of pineapple juice (I believe it is 46 oz.) and an equal amount of orange juice. We used to be able to get orange juice very cheaply in cans, but now we just use the pineapple juice can to measure. Return to low heat and add sweetener to taste. We use honey, but the original called for white sugar. Keep warm but do not allow to boil. When it seems spicy enough, it is ready to serve. If you increase the cloves, it will effectively numb a sore throat.

The tweak:  I didn’t have pineapple juice on hand, but I did have a frozen can of apple juice and one of orange juice.  I boiled the water, cloves, and cinnamon and added the teabags as the recipe describes.  Then after they steeped, I added two more quarts of water and the frozen concentrates.  I warmed them up, and added sugar to taste.  I would recommend putting the cloves and cinnamon into a cheesecloth bag for ease of fishing out.  I think I’ll put it in jars in the fridge and warm in the microwave when we want some.  I think the Tang version is probably easier to store, but this is yummy tonight!!!