Pea Soup with Peppermint :: and Koalas


Things have been busy around here, busy like salmon pushing upstream. Every year we do this run, we come home from overseas and it's time to plan grants, write grants, submit grants, and then cross our fingers and wait to see if all this work has paid off. This year, there are quolls and koalas and more forming themselves into tidy little packages of idea + approach + budget before us. And as soon as we can heave them off Robbie's desk and my desk and onto someone else's desk, I can turn my attention back onto my own year ahead.

I can't wait, I'm so keen to get started on my own year ahead. It'll involve quolls, of course, and tiny antechinus; a series of essays on all kinds of things; poems here and there; and a book proposal. I'll tell you more later, of course, but needless to say, my life and thoughts (still) revolve around death. (It's not a bad thing, actually). For the animals I'll study, it's breed-then-die. For me? I hope not to die for a very long time, but I'm hoping to learn about the process via these wild beauties, and a little research of my own.

I think in part because my brain is elsewhere, my cooking has fallen off the bench a bit. Hit and miss, around here, I'm afraid.

I've made beautiful quark-filled ravioli by hand (success, but sooooo much work) and Burmese sour soup (not success). I've been drinking lots of compensatory tea. And on Friday, I made soup. 

Pea soup. With tea. It was my glimmer of non-koala-based genius for the week, so I'm going to share it with you. It's raining here, it might be snowing where you are - this calls for soup.

Happy weekend,
Amanda xx


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Pea Soup with Peppermint
serves 2

Personally, I don't even like peppermint tea on its own ... but I keep a box of organic tea bags in my pantry for cooking with. It keeps better than the fresh stuff, and works beautifully for liquid-based dishes like this one. Peas and peppermint - they were made for each other.

The time
5-10 minutes

The ingredients + process
Boil 2 cups of frozen peas in 2 cups already-made peppermint tea, till soft. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the peas to a glass blender, with about half the cooking liquid, and 1.5 cups drained-and-rinsed canned chickpeas. Blend till smooth, adding more liquid if you prefer a runnier soup. Season with sea salt and black pepper, to taste. Stir through a small knob of butter, for extra richness.

The cost
I'd love to say I made this with organic frozen peas, but peas are such a staple around here I often just get the giant frozen bags of the regular sort. Using organic chickpeas and organic tea, this soup still comes in at just $1.50 per serve.

Comments

  1. Yummm!! made this today for work lunches and is it so simply delicious! Thank you

    ReplyDelete

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