Bright Green, Like that Happy Giant. Or Shrek.

I really like things that are green. Like, really like them. My green Converse? Yeah, those are pretty much my favorite shoes. My green sweaters? Total staples of my winter wardrobe. Same goes for my green t-shirts. Love em all!

This doesn't change when it comes to my food, either. I was never one of those kids whose mother had to pester, threaten, or bribe to get them to eat their vegetables. I would wolf mine down, then ask for seconds. This especially rang true when it came to one of my personal favorites growing up: peas. I just loved peas. No clue why, but I suspect that it had something to do with a certain story my dad would always tell us having to do with eating mashed potatoes and peas off of a knife to irritate my moms mother, Mimi.

So, one of my favorite ways to eat peas, besides mixing them with mashed potatoes, was in the form of my mom's Split Pea soup. We used to have buckets of this in our outdoor freezer, and most of my siblings would groan when they saw the big tub sitting out on the counter defrosting for dinner. Not me, no sir! I got excited. Now, living on the other side of the world, I no longer have buckets of this soup at my disposal, nor do I have the time my mom would put into making it. Ok, well, that was a lie. I have the time, just not the patience to pull it off.

So, in a valiant effort to create a simple, yet equally delicious, style of pea soup, I came up with my Roasted Pea Soup. It also gave me an excuse to go out and purchase an emlusion blender, which I have wanted for some time now. 

Now, this recipe is ridiculously easy, and requires very few ingredients. Just a few carrots, a few cloves of garlic, an onion, and a kilo of baby peas. About 2 pounds, for those of you that are sitting there scratching you heads over what exactly a kilo is.

Even though everything will eventually be blended to death, it makes it all roast nicer in the oven if you cut it all up into chunks. And, as you can see, I throw everything into a bowl to help season it all evenly. I just used olive oil and salt and pepper, keeping it simple. The roasting helps to bring out the natural flavors and sugars, and concentrate the flavors of the vegetables.

I threw everything onto baking sheet, cause I don't have a roasting pan. But, if you do, use it. Makes it easier with all those peas...

Speaking of the peas, I actually roasted everything in two stages, starting with the carrots, onions and garlic; then twenty minutes later added the peas. My theory was that since the peas are small, it shouldn't take as long. If you cant be bothered to do two stages, don't. It'll be fine. Probably.

Look at all that pretty green goodness! I started getting very excited about this soup by this point. I may or may not have started eating spoonfuls of roasted peas right out of the oven. You have no proof. I will say that roasting peas, which is something that I had never done before, works really well. That's why I love roasting things; it just enhances the yumminess of it!

So, you are gonna want a very large soup pot for this, cause the blender kind of spits bits of peas all over the place. It's ok though, as long as you don't follow in my footsteps and wear something other than that cute new white sweater you just bought. Maybe wear something green, so it all blends in? Anyways, blend all the vegetables into a bit of a mush, but not smooth. You want there to be some texture to this soup. Now, I totally forgot to take pictures of this next part, but to turn this into soup, heat up a nice big box, about 4 cups or so, of chicken or vegetable stock, and add it slowly while blending it all together.

The result is this amazingly luscious soup, with heaps of texture and flavor. It's really simple, and totally awesome. And I am so glad that I have leftovers!

Enjoy this soup with some crusty bread. That's the best type of bread. Also, if like me, you like your heat, a few dashes of tabasco will do wonders for this as well! I loved it! Oh, and don't forget to dip your bread into the soup. It's better that way. Promise.

xoxo Craig

Keep reading for the recipe

Roasted Pea Soup

What you need:

• 2 medium carrots
• 1 medium yellow onion
• 3-4 large cloves of garlic 
• 1kg (2lbs) frozen baby peas
• 4 cups chicken or vegetable stock
• olive oil
• salt & pepper

Preheat the oven to 220º C (425ºF). Cut up the carrots and the onions into bite size pieces and peel the garlic. Put them into a large mixing bowl, and add a generous drizzle of olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Stir to coat everything evenly. Pour the veggies onto a roasting pan, and put in the oven for 15 minutes. While that is happening, add the frozen peas to the same mixing bowl, and again drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Stir everything to coat evenly.

After 15 minutes, remove the pan from the oven, add the carrots, onion and garlic to the peas, then return to the pan. Return the pan to the oven and continue roasting for another 25-30 minutes.

While everything is roasting, heat up the stock. When the veggies are done, pour them into a large soup pot, with all the drippings from the roasting pan. Add about a cup of the stock, and start blending everything together. Continue adding the stock until it is all blended together. Make sure not to over blend, as you want to leave some texture to the soup. Serve with a chunk of crusty bread.