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We have been fairly meat-heavy on Cheap Tuesday Gourmet.  Living in a winter clime produces an inversion of pricing in the markets seasonally – meat can be cheaper the veggies in the winter and seasonal veggies drop under the price of meat in the warmer months.

To illustrate this point, I saw peppers at the store this week for $2.99 a pound – the same veggies will drop under $1 in the summer.  Veggies can be both expensive and inferior in the winter.

It was off to the store to pick up some veggie ideas.  I had a few recipes in mind and headed for the dried good section.  Peas and beans dry remarkably well, retain most of their nutritional value and sell extremely econonically.  2 pounds (900 grams) of split peas are less than $2.

From there is was off to the stock section.  Stock is another high-priced item when you consider what you are paying versus what you get in return.  I was going to use up to 8 cups (2 liters of stock) – which would be almost $6 if I bought the ones in tetrapacks.

Pre-made stock can also be extremely high in Sodium.  1 cup of a leading brand has 750 mg of sodium, which is 30% of your daily intake.  I’ve never become full on 1 cup of soup so dinner would almost cap my daily limit of sodium.

I dove into the bouillon cubes.  We called these Oxo cubes as a child (named after the leading brand) and I think many home kitchens have forgotten about these flavor-punches.  They are much more economical (I paid less than $3 for a box which will make 3 liters of stock) and versatile – you can choose how strong you want their flavor to be.

I chose a low sodium version – the most important factor for me.  89 mg (4% of your daily intake) per cup of broth.

Our grocery list is almost complete – add a few onions, some olive oil, a bit of paprika and a lemon and head to the kitchen.

Heat a small amount of oil and add finely chopped onions and cook for a few minutes.  You are not trying to brown them but merely soften them.  I added salt and pepper at this point (skip the salt if using a higher sodium broth).

While your onions are cooking, rinse 2 cups of dried split peas (you don’t need to soak them for this recipe) and bring to a boil.  Simmer until the peas become tender – this could take up to 30 minutes.  I like to keep my peas a little Al Dente – know that this stage is 95% of the cooking so don’t count on them becoming a lot softer in later stages.

Remove from heat and place 50-75% of your soup base in a food processor.  My experience states that the more base you mix, the thicker your soup will be.  Add this mixture back into your pot and assess the thickness.  You may wish to add additional water if your soup is paste-thick.  We added 3 more cups of water at this point.

Add a cube or two of your bouillon.  Ignore the instructions on the back which likely call for 1 cube in every 2 cups of water – you are not adding this to water alone and already have lots of flavor (much of your liquid is, after all, peas and onions).  We used 2 cubes in almost 8 cups (2 liters) of soup.

Add lemon juice to flavor.  It should taste different than the soup alone but diners should barely (if at all) be able to identify this mystery ingredient.

Finish in the bowl – we added a few fine squirts of olive oil and paprika – the paprika took the soup to en entirely different place.

4 big bowls of soup (dinner sized) for less than $0.75 each.  Lots of veggies and great winter warmth.

Cheap Tuesday gourmet is a series of posts on eating more affordably and has been running for several weeks..  The full details are here but the premise is simple – creating good, wholesome food at affordable pricing as a means to support and create a dialogue in which we can share how to eat wholesome food at a fraction of a price of fast food alternatives.  The terms gourmet and cheap are relative – the term Tuesday is not.  Click on the tag Cheap Tuesday Gourmet (below this paragraph) will link you to all of the articles.