Ham and Black Eyed Pea Soup

Well the onslaught of what to create with the leftover Thanksgiving feast has started. I have made a couple different dinners over the last week, trying to utilize my leftovers. One of the favorites is this soup. My daughter could not wait for me to make it so I had to do it first. This hearty soup is so very simple to make, I doubled the batch and I almost wish I had made more! I believe the flavors will just improve the longer it sits. I can say of course that was not a long time though. All of it was gone in a few days!

For my family, I always make the traditional turkey, and a ham. My ham is not the sugary sweet honey ham. I go for the basic ham cooked low and slow. I had about two cups of ham chopped up for this recipe. Whatever you have it will still taste great!

I used 2 cups chopped ham
1 bag collard greens

2 cans split peas drained and rinsed
1 onion chopped
4 stalks of celery chopped
32oz of chicken broth
4 cups of water
Pepper (to taste)

I would not add salt the ingredients are salty and as they cook they impart a lot of that salty flavor to the soup. Throw all of it into a very large stock pot and allow it to simmer for two to three hours. The liquid will reduce as it is cooking, this will allow all the flavors to combine and come into perfect harmony.

I serve this with some Parmesan cheese and a dollop of sour cream. YUMMY

I hope you enjoyed the post and the recipe. Of course this can be made anytime you have ham on hand! You can also change the peas to split green peas, but I find those become really mushy when cooked for this long.