Ok people, this recipe is seriously delicious. Will and I whipped it up basically by accident last night to use up some leftover pork, and then re-heated it for dinner this evening. As it was warming up on the stove, I was seriously drooling even though I wasn’t even that hungry. It smells DIVINE. Like a platter of fried chicken and BBQ pork all smothered in tastiness.
And it is —SO—EASY—. 5 ingredients, that’s it! Heaps of veggies hidden in there, plus the super healing and immune-boosting nutritional punch of chicken broth. The one catch is you want to try and make your own good organic chicken broth if you can.
The easy way to have homemade bone broth in the fridge at all times…
We are in the routine of collecting all the bones from any good organic meat and fish that we buy. We put them in the freezer in containers sorted by type, and as they fill up, once or twice a week we just chuck one type in the slow cooker. Top it up with water and a splash of apple cider vinegar, and leave it on until the next evening.
We usually start it on High overnight, and the next morning turn it down to Low for the day. When we get home later, we scoop out the bones with a ladle or slotted spoon, and pour the broth into jars or containers. So easy, and you end up with lots of broth to keep in the fridge or freezer.
If you’re not up to making your own broth, just snag some good clean organic chicken broth from the store. “Clean” meaning no additives!
A quick real-food dinner to whip up on wintry evenings. It stores or freezes really well so make lots and store in containers for easy future meals.
Ingredients
- 3 big organic pork servings, or 3 big slices of ham (we used leftover pork shoulder from a Christmas dinner; you can use any type but just make sure you can chop it up into small-ish cubes)
- 2 cups homemade organic chicken stock
- 2 cups organic celery
- 2 cups organic carrots
- 1.5 cups dried split peas
- 2-3 cups water
- pink himalayan salt to taste
Instructions
- If your pork is not already cooked, cut into cubes and cook it a bit in the bottom of your pot with some butter.
- Measure the peas into the pot and add 2 cups water, 2 cups chicken stock. You may need to add more water if it begins to look dry as it cooks.
- Finely chop or food-process the carrots and celery and add to the pot.
- Bring the whole thing to a boil, then down to a simmer and leave it for 30 minutes or so, until you can sample a pea and it's cooked soft.
- Add salt to taste, and serve. Yum!
Notes
RECIPE TIP: Add some chopped garlic, a bay leaf or some herbs such as marjoram, thyme or sage for even more savoury flavour.
KITCHEN TIP: Prep this recipe really quick and then get other stuff done while it simmers! Pack breakfasts, lunches and snacks for work, get the dishes done, do some squats, clean the litterbox, etc! So it really only takes 15 minutes of "active" cooking time!
I do realize the picture doesn’t look that appetizing…but what picture of soup ever looks that good? It always just sort of looks like mystery mush. You’ll just have to trust me on this one!
A note on split peas and carbs
I’m not sure about the paleo or primal-ness of split peas; I’m guessing they fall fairly low on the list, or in a gray area. They’re sort of a vegetable, sort of a legume. But based on stuff I’ve heard from Daniel Vitalis and Arthur Haines, I feel that primal hunter-gatherer types at least in the Americas seemed to gather a lot of wild grain and legume type foods. And lately I’m making a point of not being afraid of carbs. Not going overboard either, but having a healthy serving of lower-GI carbs in the evening is just fine.