My Place and Yours, My Secret Weapon.

I've been a bit bad at keeping up with the My Place and Yours posts due to sickness, but when I saw that the latest one was a shot of your 'Secret Weapon' it was too fun to resist. You really should go and take a peek at what others have done! My secret weapon is soup. The above is a delicious yellow split pea soup (recipe to follow) I made today for lunch (and then ate again for dinner with many, many biscuits), but I really love all soups. Meatless, natch.

If you talk to my aunt, you will hear many a story of me turning my nose up and pumpkin or vegetable soup when I was younger, which to me is totally crazy as I'm now basically obsessed with it. Due to my soup love, I have tried out many a recipe and can whip up a pretty mean potato and leek or ginger carrot batch. I love that you're really just building on a (perfect) base of onions, garlic and oil and then adding whatever spices, seasonings, veggies or beans take your fancy. Yum! It is perfect for the cold weather we're entering into, and a steaming bowl with biscuits make me a very happy lady!

Hearty Yellow Split Pea Soup

You'll need...

- 2 cups of yellow (or green) split pea

- 2 onions, chopped

- juice of half a lemon

- 1 Tbsp olive oil

- 2 celery stalks

- 3 carrots

- 2 potatoes

- 5-6 cups of broth or water

- Salt and pepper to taste

Method

1. Throw the oil and onion in your pot, cooking on medium-high heat until the onion is soft.

2. Add veggies and saute for a minute or two.

3. Add split peas and broth, bring to the boil.

4. Once boiled, turn down to a simmer. Cover and leave for around 20 minutes.

5. You can blend the soup or leave it chunky, and if at this stage you want to thin the soup just do so by adding more broth/water in batches.

6. Before serving, stir in some lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste.

Enjoy!