Yellow Split Pea and Spinach Soup

For as long as I can remember homemade soups have always been a favourite of mine. Since being banded I've also found that they're an easy way for me to get a nutrient rich meal into my tummy. For the past year or so I've become increasingly aware of how little meat I eat and therefore I've been consciously making an effort to cook more with other protein sources like beans, peas and lentils or pulses. 

I have great intentions of preparing a bunch of easy to freeze/thaw/re-heat foods for Folk Fest. I decided that I should really do a test run for any recipes so that I don't end up out at the festival starving with a bunch of soups and stews that I don't like. 

The original recipe can be found over here on the Soup Chick's blog and my review of the recipe is below. 

Yellow Pea and Spinach Soup

I used yellow peas instead of lentils (I couldn't find yellow lentils anywhere). The only spice I didn't have was coriander which many of you might already have. 

Tomato paste tip: this recipe calls for 1 tsp of tomato paste, I'm not lucky enough to live somewhere that I can purchase my tomato paste in a resealable tube or something so this is what I do. I use a small cookie scoop (approximately 1 tsp in size) and scoop the tomato paste onto a a lined baking sheet, freeze and then transfer to resealable freezer bag or container. Now whenever you have a recipe that calls for just a 1 tsp or 1 tbsp of tomato paste you just need to pull some out of the freezer pre-measured. 

Because I used unsoaked yellow peas my soup took much longer than the 4 hours on low in the recipe. After two hours I changed the temperature from low to high and continued to cook for an additional 4 hours.   I will say that I have an old slow-cooker so the temperatures might not be the greatest. I then turned off the heat, stirred in the coconut milk and spinach and adjusted the seasoning to taste. 

Overall, I like this recipe for me but not for Folk Fest. It doesn't have enough substance and I can imagine we're going to need some hearty meals in us.