Habitant Style Pea Soup

I made up this soup, trying to imitate the flavour of the French Canadian pea soup my mum used to cook using a ham bone in a big cast iron kettle over a wood fire, back when my family used to do historic re-enactment when I was a kid. It is pretty close, for something I made in my crockpot out of leftovers and which in no way contains pig (which I haven't eaten in nigh on 20 years).

I basically threw things in the crockpot, so all of these measurements are approximate.

• 4 cups vegetable broth
• 1/2 cup dry cooking sherry
• 1 cup split peas (I ended up using a 2:1 mixture of split peas and green lentils, because I was short on peas).
• 4 fingerling (small, new crop) carrots scrubbed and diced into rounds (or 2 bigger main crop carrots peeled and sliced)
• 1 large yellow onion, diced
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 3 bay leaves
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
• 2 tsp. dried savory
• 1 tsp. dried thyme
• lots of freshly ground black pepper
• dash of salt
• 8-10 drops natural liquid smoke
• 3/4 cup frozen baby peas
• 1/3 cup instant potato flakes (unflavoured) * you could also use a chopped fresh potato; just add it at the beginning instead of the end. I didn't have one, but I keep flakes on hand for just such an occasion.

Put everything except frozen peas and potato flakes into the crockpot. Cook on low for 6 hours. Fish out the bay leaves. Mix in the frozen peas and potato flakes. Let the soup warm through for a few minutes, then blend it carefully to desired consistency with an immersion blender. I like to leave some chunks of vegetables when I blend it. Very good with any kind of fresh bread.

Must say, pea soup is not photogenic. Or attractive at all, really. So no photo! But tastes and smells great. Even my SO, who generally doesn't like non-spicy things, really liked it.