I'll start this post by saying that the March 2012 Vegetarian Times has a LOT of great recipes in it! I mean, they usually have a couple that I put on heavy rotation, but I've made FOUR out of this volume (is that what it's called?) and I'm posting all but one that I thought was good, but not blog-worthy.
This really easy and delicious recipe is basically just a twist on an every-day kinda dish. Split pea soup! Except this soup has FENNEL!!!! I am learning that I have a thing for fresh fennel that I never knew existed. The smell, the flavor, the fronds... OK, I'll stop. It's GOOD.
Split Pea, Fennel and Spinach Soup
Ingredients:
2 cups chopped fennel (1 bulb or 5 fennel stalks, fronds removed)
1 large onion, chopped (I used a yellow one)
3 cloves garlic, minced (eh, chopped is fine, it's going in the Vitamix anyway)
1 cup dry white wine ( I used cooking sake. You could also skip this if you don't do booze.)
15 oz. dried green split peas
1 tsp. fennel seeds, divided
1/2 tsp. dried thyme
1 bay leaf
5 oz. baby spinach leaves
7 cups water
Heat saucepan coated with a little cooking spray. Add fennel and onion and sauté 8 minutes.
Stir in garlic and cook another 30 seconds. Add 1/2 cup wine, simmer for 2 minutes.
Add split peas, 1/2 tsp. fennel seeds, thyme, bay leaf and 7 cups of water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to med-low, cover and simmer 50 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Add remaining 1/2 cup wine and cook uncovered for 10 minutes or until split peas are tender. On my stove, it took 5. Stir in spinach and cook 2 minutes or until spinach is wilted.
Remove bay leaf and purée soup with an immersion blender if you have one. I have the big mamma-jamma Vitamix, so the entire saucepan full of yumminess fit in one batch. THAT SAID, be EXTREMELY CAREFUL when blending hot things in any blender!!!! There is a chance the top will fly off and scalding food stuffs will hit you and burn the sh#t out of you! If you have any sense and you're using a blender-type thing, you'll do it in two batches. I do not have any sense and did it all in one swoop. Luckily, I came out unscathed, but again, be VERY CAREFUL!!!! OK...
Don't do this!
Serve soup with toasted fennel seeds and thank the geniuses at Vegetarian Times for coming up with this satisfying and ridiculously delicious recipe!
UPDATE: I finally got an immersion blender. It came out just as delicious, just not as thoroughly blended or as thick as it does with the Vitamix. Safer though, for sure!
After using the immersion blender.
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