Vegetarian Split Pea Soup

I spotted this recipe last week when I had zero groceries to my name and found myself rooting through all sorts of dry goods to piece together a meal. I was missing the onion and lemon, but today I had both of those essential ingredients for this vegetarian split pea soup, and it seemed the perfect day to discover if the myth that eating hot food on a hot day was fact or crap.

I halved this recipe and the only other alteration I made was to keep the quantity of lemon juice in tact as my lemon wasn't very juicy. When juicing lemons at home, a basic reamer will do ya, but if you do any more aggressive home juicing, I recommend this nifty gadget. It's perfect for when the mood for fresh agave margaritas strikes!

I always start with the best ingredients I can get, and this goes doubly so for a recipe with such a short ingredient list, so when I saw that the recipe called specifically for smoked paprika and mine was labeled "Spanish" I hit the interwebs to see if there's a difference. Pondering the provenance of your paprika? Hit this link for a little knowledge and use these tips to conduct a spice audit if your seasonings saw the better half of the last decade.

This soup was fast, tasted fresh and was very filling. I'm still sizzling, but that could have to do more with the fact that I'm too cheap to turn my Flintstone's era A/C on.

I've gotta bolt and get a kettle on for a water bath (as long as I'm already sweating!). Tomorrow I'll let you know how my first attempt at bread pudding goes. If you don't see anything, you can assume the answer is bad!