Sunday's Soup

It's St. Patrick's Day! In honor of my Celtic heritage, and the color for the day, green, I'm doing a fun little soup with a twist. Some time ago, I watched a documentary about the Celtic nation. They talked about the Roman empire and how they had conquered most of Europe, really just about all of Europe except for the Celtic nation. An historian who was being interviewed was asked why the Romans never sought to try and conquer the Celts. He replied, "Because they thought the Celts were crazy." When I heard this I thought, "you mean that you went all through Europe conquering everything in sight and yet this little group of people scared you?" Were they really crazy or were they exceptionally smart? I think it may be the latter :-)
This is a creamy soup, but no cream was added. It has all the colors of the Irish flag, green, orange and white with a nod to the fact that the Romans never took over, pesto!!

    Cream of Broccoli Soup with Pesto

The ingredients;
2 pounds of broccoli
1 pound of carrots
1 large onion
2 cloves of garlic
2 stalks of celery
5 medium size Irish potatoes
1 cup of dried green split peas
2 large cubes of Knorr vegetable bouillon
1/2 cup of prepared pesto
2 tablespoons of olive oil
10 cups of water
salt and black pepper to taste

Heat olive oil in large pot. Chop onions, garlic and celery and saute in oil until tender. Add chopped broccoli and 4 cups of water. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat and cook until broccoli is tender.

 Using an immersible hand held mixer, puree broccoli mixture. You can also puree mixture in a blender.

 Add split greens peas, sliced carrots,

 and chopped potatoes along with 6 cups of water and the 2 bouillon cubes.

Once again, bring to a boil and then reduce heat to low. Cook until vegetables are tender.
Add pesto. I used 1/2 cup but you can use more or less depending upon your taste preferences.
Stir well. Add salt and black pepper to taste. Remember, the pesto can be rather salty, so add less salt initially and more if needed.
To serve, garnish with a teaspoon of pesto and chopped green onions.

My favorite pesto recipe comes from The Silver Palette Cookbook, a great cookbook to have in your library. I posted the recipe a few years ago. You can find it here,  http://www.rhondabuss.blogspot.com/2010/07/pesto-pronto.html.
Hope you have all been enjoying this day!
Rhonda