Split Pea Soup

I made this a couple nights ago, but the baby just started crawling. This means blogging about dinner is incredibly difficult, as she's always crawling all over me and complaining when I try to type. Anyway, this soup tastes great and will feed probably about 10 or so people, so I have a ton of left overs.

Ingredients:

2 cups dry split peas
2 quarts cold water
1 14 oz can Vegetable broth
2 small onions, or one large
1 celery stalk, chopped
1 clove garlic, diced
1 carrot, chopped
ham bone or small ham steak chopped up
1 cup milk
salt and pepper

Bring the first 8 ingredients in a large pot to a boil, then turn down to a simmer (add a little salt and pepper during this stage too).



Simmer, covered, for 1-2 hours (mine took about 1 hour and 15 minutes), until peas and carrots are soft. If you are using a ham bone, remove it and let whatever meat bits remain fall into the soup. Then add the milk and simmer another minute or so while stirring it in.

Add a little more salt and pepper and stir. Serve. Very easy and tasty!