Herbed Green Pea Soup and Baby Blue Salad

This was dinner last night and it hit the spot.  The salad is an old favorite and the pea soup was a new recipe and I will have to tell you that it is wonderful. Really, what can you do with pea soup but this recipe will awaken your taste buds.  It has fresh tarragon and fresh dill, it's easy to make and I think it will become a favorite.  It has become one of mine.  The recipe calls for vegetable broth, all I had was chicken so I used that and I didn't have any fresh dill so I used dill seeds and ground them and it was still good.  Although, I love fresh dill and I'm sure that using fresh dill would enhance the flavor even more.  I had fresh tarragon left from the holidays which I normally wouldn't have had.

Herbed Green Pea Soup

1/2 cup diced scallions
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons fresh minced tarragon
2 tablespoons fresh minced dill
1 pound fresh frozen peas, thawed
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
3 cups vegetable broth
2 tablespoons honey
1 cup half n half
salt and pepper to taste

Saute scallions in butter for several minutes then add herbs, peas and nutmeg.  Stir all these ingredients together in sauce pan and then add vegetable broth and boil for about 5 minutes.  Remove half of the mixture and blend in a blender then return and add back to the soup pot.  Stir in honey and half and half.  Stir well and taste and add salt and pepper.  Heat thoroughly and serve.

Makes 4 small servings.

The next time I make this I am going to use 2 pounds of frozen peas.  I will blend all the mixture and then add the other bag of whole peas to the puree.  For me, there were not a lot of whole peas left after I pureed them.

Baby Blue Salad

3/4 pound mixed greens
4 ounces Blue Cheese, crumbles
2 oranges, peeled and cut into small chunks
1 pint strawberries, quartered
Balsamic Vinaigrette
Sweet and Spicy Pecans

Vinaigrette:  1/2 cup balsamic vinegar, 3 tablespoons Dijon mustard, 3 tablespoons honey, 2 cloves garlic, minced, 2 small shallots, minced, 1/4 teaspoon pepper and 1/4 teaspoon salt, 1 cup olive oil.  Whisk together first 7 ingredients until well blended and gradually whisk in olive oil .
Makes 1 2/3 cup

Sweet and Spicy Pecans: 1/4 cup sugar, 1 cup warm water, 1 cup pecans halves, 2 tablespoons of sugar, 1 tablespoon chili powder, 1/8 teaspoon red or (cayenne pepper).  Stir together 1/4 cup sugar and 1 cup of warm water until sugar dissolves.  Add pecan halves and soak for 10 minutes.  Drain
and discard sugar mixture.  Combine 2 tablespoons of sugar with chili powder and cayenne pepper. Add pecans tossing to coat.  Place of greased cookie sheet and bake at 350 for 10 minutes or until golden brown, stirring once.   Yields 1 cup

This salad is just wonderful.  I love fruit and nuts in salad.  I had some fresh pineapple and I added several chunks of that to our salads also.  It was great!

After all the rich food over the holidays and not a lot of salads this was a welcome change.  We love salads and I'm glad to be back on track eating them daily.