Warm Comfort
Seeing as how every time I try to eat solid food, I end up biting down on my soon to be root-canalled tooth, which leads to extreme discomfort, i.e. f-bombs being littered about the immediate surroundings, it seemed like the perfect evening for a warming bowl of easy-to-eat-with-minimal-masticating soup. I just found this deliciously satisfying version on the hunger inducing Leite's Culinaria website. Smoked ham hock and split pea soup....just what the doctor, or in this case dentist, ordered. I grabbed some smoked ham hocks from New Seasons along with the other fixin's, headed home, and the results were just what I wanted. I didn't add the ham hock meat back in as the recipe suggested, and it was the right call as the soup had plenty of smoky, meaty flavor since the hocks cooked in the soup for an hour. If you want the more traditional creamy style, just throw your hand blender in and spin it. This is the perfect dish on a cold, wet late winter evening, and is exceedingly easy to put together.