Pea soup with Bacon (based on NYT cooking recipe for "Hearty Pea Soup")

Notoriously sensiitive to cold, I gravitate towards hot food when the thermometer dips below “vest weather” and I am always on the hunt for more soup recipes. As is my way when I have moments, I combined a few recipes for this soup but the bones are The NY Times Cooking’s recipe for hearty pea soup. Their recipe calls for a whole lb of bacon, but well, I am frugal and frought with fears over calorie considerations so I added 5-6 slices and pronounced myself very generous. As it was, the bacon flavor was very pronounced so I would if I were you, follow my lead.

Ingredients

5-6 pieces of smoked bacon

medium onion, diced

2-3 cloves of garlic, diced

3 medium carrots

*optional - sweet potato, diced

Plan of Attack

Dice the bacon and put in the bottom of your heavy pot or or dutch oven and render until it is crispy. Add the carrots, onion and garlic and cook until aromatic

Add 8 cups of chicken stock and peas, and simmer until the peas are tender. You might need to add more chicken stock or water. *Remember the water evaporating from the pot does not take the salt or seasonings with it so adding more chicken stock might might result in overly salty soup, so I encourage you to add water if it cooks off before the peas are tender and then add more seasoning later after tasting the finished soup if necessary.

Dice bacon into 1/4-inch cubes. Place in a heavy 6-quart pot over medium-low heat. Cook until fat is rendered and translucent. Add onion, carrot, celery and garlic. Cook until onion and garlic are soft and translucent. Season with salt and pepper.

I did not puree the whole soup and instead used my handy hand blender to puree most of it and then cooked it down a little bit more so it was kind of the consistency I what I call shtoup…..

I garnished with some Siracha because I like some spice in pretty much everything but garnish as your heart desires!