vegan split pea soup

My friend Christopher is having a vegan potluck this Friday in order to give my friend Jarrett the opportunity to talk a little bit about Stone Soup Farm and his CSA program (there are still farmshares available at the Harvard Square pickup location - check it out: http://stonesoupfarm.googlepages.com/ ) and to try everyone else's yummy food.

I knew I wouldn't have time to cook Thursday or after work Friday before the potluck, so Wednesday was the time to get it done - but I needed something that would last. I've gotten really into this other foodblog - 101cookbooks.com - and I had been interested in making her split pea soup, so I decided to give it a shot. I was especially excited to try the smoked paprika, which I had gina marie pick up for me at stop & shop today. The recipe came from here: http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/vegetarian-split-pea-soup-recipe.html - and I varied a little bit, but mostly I stuck with her plan.

I sat in the living room since folks were over and I chopped two onions.
Once I was done, I returned to the kitchen and stirred the onions and some salt in with some olive oil over medium heat in my big soup pot.


Next I poured a bag of split peas in a bowl and poured some water in, swirled it around, and then poured it out the water slowly and used my hand to keep the peas in the bowl.

once the onions were soft I poured the peas in.
Then I poured in 5 cups of water and half a veggie bullion cube. The I stirred, turned the heat on medium, and let it simmer while I watched TV. When I remembered I stirred, and I got nervous it was getting too thick about 10 minutes in and put the lid on most of the way.

When the peas were soft - and the water mostly absorbed, I got out my immersion blender. I poured half the soup into a bowl, and then blended the stuff still in the pot. Then I poured the stuff in the bowl back into the pot, and stirred in the juice of half a lemon and a few sprinkles of smoked paprika and a little more salt. I heated it for a minute or two to get everything to gel.

Then I turned off the heat and put the soup in a heavyduty tupperware. I'm going to bring smoked paprika and olive oil and lemon zest with me to prepare little bowls at the potluck that look as pretty as the ones on 101cookbooks.com!
If I remember I will take pictures at the potluck and let you all know how it came out!

I took a picture at the pt luck yesterday - but I forgot to bring my camera, so all I have is the a picture from the phone. I swear it looked prettier in person! I skipped the lemon zest, but I brought the olive oil and the smoked paprika so that folks could "season" their soup, and this is the "sample" that I made so that people would know what to do: