Just a simple pressure cooker recipe that I came up with to get rid of leftover meat in my freezer. While digging around I found sausage, ham, and bacon that I didn't know I had. But the salami and pepperoni lasts the shortest amount of time in the freezer before it develops an off-putting taste, so I decided to put that in the soup, as well as some sausage. Ham and sausage is the ideal meat for split pea soup, but you can use any smoked beef/pork or chicken sausage. If you've got some meat that is about to go bad, just toss it in the pressure cooker. Since dried split peas cook in 10 minutes, I was able to brown the vegetables and meat in the bottom of the pressure cooker on the saute setting, add the peas and broth, and cook everything together, as simple as that. With a bean that takes longer to cook, you could saute the meat and vegetables, take them out of the pressure cooker, add the broth and cook the dried beans, then add back the meat and vegetables and cook another 20 minutes, no need to get a frying pan dirty. If it's not fully cooked just put the lid back on and add more time. Pressure cookers make it very easy to prepare a healthy meal out of dried legumes. I added some dried gourmet mushrooms to my soup, but didn't think they added anything, so I left them out of the recipe. For seasoning I used my favorite all-purpose seasonings from Trader Joe's, 21 Seasoning Salute and Mushroom Umami. I used broth that I made before hand by tossing chicken bones from my freezer into the pressure cooker, and boiling with water for an hour. Buy whole chickens and save money on broth.
Ingredients
Procedure:
