I am finding myself making quite a few soups at the moment with the cold weather upon us, plus I always find soup is a great way of sneaking veggies into kids. My son is quite funny when it comes to soup, there is many vegetables he will not touch if I put them on his plate, but serve him a bowl of soup with some buttered bread and he will eat pretty much all veg. Go figure!! My youngest has also now mastered using a spoon, but this recipe would still be great for little ones who have just started on the baby led weaning journey, just serve them up some using a slotted spoon so that they don’t how so much of the liquid, they can then just grab bits of the veg and split peas.

Courgette and Split Pea Soup

This makes a huge pot and is great for freezing

Ingredients

• 2 courgettes, chopped
• 2 onions chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic chopped
• 1 stick of celery
• 2 teaspoons of ground cumin
• 2 teaspoons of ground coriander
• 225g of yellow split peas, dry
• 1 litre of no added salt vegetable stock
• black pepper to season
• olive oil

Directions

Place yellow spilt peas in a bowl or saucepan, cover with about 4 cups of water, and leave to soak overnight.

When you are ready to make the soup, drain and thoroughly rinse the yellow split peas and set aside.

Add some olive oil to a large saucepan over a medium high heat, add the onions, garlic , carrot, courgette and celery and cook until softened.

Stir in the split peas, cumin and coriander and season with some black pepper.

Add the stock, bring to the boil, reduce to a low heat, then cover and simmer for approx 1 hour, until split peas are nice and tender.

Serve as is, or if your kids prefer a smoother soup you can add to a blender.

Enjoy!!