Every September my husband and I practice what we call “Starving Student Month”. For 30 days we stop spending money on anything not absolutely necessary and modify what we spend on food since this seems to be a big expense. No fancy cheese or wine or specialty items that cost a small fortune. This exercise helps us to refocus on saving and open our eyes to what we are spending each month. It’s actually a fun challenge and gets ups cooking some tried and true recipes. Yesterday we made split pea soup which is so easy and inexpensive a 12 yr old could mange it – it also happens to be very yummy. The best part is you are guaranteed leftovers. A big pot of soup will feed us for days!

Saute in olive oil – 2 chopped onions, 1 chopped celery stock, and 1 chopped carrot. Add to 12 cups of water along with 1 lb split peas, ham hock, and 4 pcs cooked crumbled bacon. Bring to a boil and let simmer for 3-4 hrs, stirring occasionally. When peas are soft and broken up remove ham hock. Dice ham and add back to soup. Enjoy! **To speed up the process, blend soup in batches after 1 hour.

16 Sep This entry was published on September 16, 2013 at 8:01 am. It’s filed under Food, General Fun and tagged Easy Recipe, How to Save Money, Inexpensive Meal, Money Saving Challenge, Split Pea Soup, Starving Student. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.