Favourite Soups - getting ready for autumn

My husband Stewart and I have different versions of this. Mine is the full fat, skin-on, high carb one described here. Served for lunch today with left-over corned beef and kumara cakes - flavoured with cumin and fennel seed. Declicious!

Pea and Ham Soup

1 ham hock or 1kg of bacon bones.

(I chop big gashes into the ham hock so the meat starts to fall apart in chunks as soon as it's cooked)

4 large onions, chopped

12 whole peppercorns, or you can crush them

about 150-200gm split peas - I use the yellow ones

(can't get past the image of green eggs and ham if I see green split peas...)

Put the bones or hock in a big stock pot and cover with water. About 4 litres.. you can add more later if needed.

Add everything else and bring to the boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for about 1 1/2 hours.

At this stage Stew always removes the bone, cuts the meat off it and puts the bone in the bin - but only if I don't see him. Leave the bone in!
You do need to make sure the meat is not in great lumps or someone will get the whole lot in their bowl. I cut it into even-ish chunks for this reason only... by now the soup will be cooked and you can adjust the seasoning. The peas should be really mushy and powdery, the onions cooked through and the meat falling apart. Add more water if it's too thick - but thick is good. Be careful not to water it down too far.

Serve with bread and butter. Lots of butter. So you can see your teeth marks in it, as a friend of mine says.

For Stew's "good" version, you can cut all the skin off the hock and throw it away before you start. But I wouldn't....