St Patrick's Day Green Pea and Prosciutto Soup

In our quest for new food and solely based on the fact it was St Patrick's day, I found a green pea soup recipe. I wanted something green (that wasn't beer) for dinner. Because why not! This soup is really simple and you probably have everything you need for it in your pantry and fridge/freezer. I added the prosciutto to the original recipe because I had some extra and bacon and peas go together so well. If you don't have Crisco shortening you can use 1 TBSP of oil or butter instead. If you want it to be even more green, use water instead of stock. This soup was really filling and had great flavour, I may add asparagus if I made it again just for a different taste going through it.

St Patrick's Day Green Pea and Prosciutto Soup
(Adapted from Here)

Ingredients

1 medium sweet or white onion
1 Tbsp Crisco Vegetable Shortening
2 garlic cloves, grated
4-6 Slices thin Prosciutto
500 g frozen green peas - I used green giant Spring Sweets
2 Cups Low Sodium Vegetable stock - I used Kitchen Basics
Bay leaf
Salt and Pepper to taste

Directions:

Chop the onion and slice the prosciutto into thin ribbon like slices.

Heat the Crisco in a soup pot and add the onions and 1 - 2 slices worth of the prosciutto, stir and cook out onions till translucent. Grate garlic over pot.

Add the frozen peas, stock and bay leaf. Cook for about half hour.

Take out the bay leaf and blend the soup with a hand blender or remove to a blender. Once blended (pour back to pot) and add salt and pepper to taste.

Fry remaining prosciutto to add some crispiness and cook off a bit of the fat, a couple minutes.

Top soup with crispy prosciutto!