Split Pea and Ham Soup

I had a big chunk of fancy ham that I didn't know what to do with. After a huge batch of potato salad (Japanese style with ham) there was still more than a pound of meat left.

The Cooks Illustrated has a very straight forward recipe for Split Pea and Ham soup and I happened to have all the ingredients except for fresh thyme. I used dried thyme instead. The split peas I used actually came from the famous Pea Soup Andersen's (home of the split pea soup!), thanks to my friend Haruka!

The result was a hearty, tasty soup but not all that impressive. However, when I added a bit of balsamic vinegar to the leftover soup 2 days later, the flavor really popped. Interesting!

Hearty Chicken Noodle Soup

We have three sick people in the house this week so I decided to try the "Hearty Chicken Noodle Soup" recipe from the Cooks Illustrated. It seemed pretty complicated but didn't require hours of cooking.

I got an air chilled whole chicken from Whole Foods and asked the butcher to remove the breast and cut the rest of the chicken in 2 inch pieces. The guy replied "we can cut it any way you want". I was dumbfounded when I saw my bag of chicken pieces. Where are the breasts?! I also couldn't decide which piece was actually 2 inches. Anyway, I picked out pieces that had "rib like" bones or boneless and designated them breasts.

The recipe was followed closely except that I substituted homemade spaetzle for the egg noodles. The substitution worked well and did not require too much additional time. It was a tasty chicken soup with good flavor; however I personally prefer the chicken fricassee recipe from the Joy of Cooking for my sick days. The main difference was probably the thickening step in the Joy of Cooking recipe which makes the soup much more fulfilling.

As the only healthy person left in the house, I suspect that I will get to make another chicken soup to my liking soon. Stay tuned for the chicken fricassee.

Gazpacho

This is a recipe from the Cooks Illustrated. It was definitely better than most gazpacho I've had, but was still on the salty side. Perhaps I should have used Welch's tomato juice as suggested in the recipe. The red bell pepper added a very nice sweet flavor and the overall ratio of the veggies were good.