Peas, please. (And peace would be nice, too.)

When I was a kid, I loved canned peas. I know, it sounds really gross, but in my house we never ate anything fresh, not even frozen. It always came out of a can. When I was sick, my grandmother used to make me “pea soup”, which consisted of a can of peas, some milk and a little margarine. As unappetizing as that may sound, whenever I get sick, the idea of it is very comforting to me.

It appears that I am having a little pea renaissance right now.

Last spring, Jim and I started eating a low carb, high protein vegan diet to help me lose some weight. Paired with exercise, it actually worked great. It wasn’t over-the-top, we still ate carbs, but in the form of fibrous fruit and whole grains with lots of protein and veggies. Of course, the combination of zero willpower and working on the cookbook killed all of the results, but we have been talking about uping the protein again. I was eating a lot of almonds as a snack and I have a tendency to over-do things so I ate way too many and was not excited about eating almonds again. At Whole Foods the other day, I was delighted to find these:

Roasted, salted peas! Have you ever heard of such a thing? Of all the nuts and seeds out there, I have never seen these before. And let me say, they are really affordable, delicious and have a good amount of protein in them.

I have been trying to be better about batch cooking on the weekends, so I don’t come home at night to Jim eating mugs of sugary accidentally-vegan cereals and then giving up and eating half a jar of salsa with chips before I go to to bed. Of course, Trader Joe’s in my go-to place for, well, everything.

I love buying jars of TJ’s bruschetta or antipasta and throwing them together with some beans, noodles, and veggies. Here, I sauteed some onions and garlic, added the bruschetta, garbanzos and a bag of chopped up baby zucchini, and topped it with half a bag of cooked whole wheat and flax noodles and a little sprinkling of chopped kalamata olives.

Return of the peas! I love split pea soup, so what better to make than a warm, creamy pot of soup on a cold winter’s day!

I normally use potatoes in my soups to make them creamier, but this time opted for 1/3 of a head of cauliflower. It worked perfectly, disintegrating into the soup before Jim could realize that he was, in fact, eating his least favorite vegetable.

Split Pea Soup with Hippy Dippy Crackers

It was perfect served with my Hippy Dippy Crackers for the new cookbook.

Now Jim and I have no excuses for going out for lunch this week or eating complete garbage for dinner… at least not until we’ve had leftovers first! Hope you had a great weekend!