You probably haven’t tried the yellow pea soup at IKEA because, like any normal Swedish-furniture-buying person, you go to the restaurant for the meatballs. Emotions aside, I gave up the meatballs to facilitate my weight loss. Happily, that choice created the opportunity to try the yellow pea soup.
Their yellow pea soup comes in an extremely practical bowl with two necessary rye crackers. The crackers are mandatory because this soup has no variation in texture so it must be served with a side of something that requires chewing. The soup is stick-to-your-spoon thick, and would make the most glorious splat on a wall during a food fight. The cheerful color appeals to my weekly goal to eat the full rainbow. It is not every week I get to check “pea soup yellow” off my list.
The problem with IKEA’s yellow pea soup (other than being too salty) is the cost.
One Friday evening, Mike asked what we were doing that weekend. I said, “I was just thinking about the pea soup at IKEA, let’s go have lunch.”
“Sure,” he replied, “do we need anything for around the house while we are there?”
“No,” I said, “let’s just walk around and then get lunch.”
So, it’s agreed. Until the next morning when we both said, “I thought of a few things we could pick up as long as we are going to drive all the way down.” For reference it takes us about 45 minutes to drive to the store and don’t even get me started on the pain of driving THROUGH Seattle.
We grabbed our short list — hangers or a waste basket (why do we always need another waste basket?) — packed up the kiddos and headed south. By the time we conquered the traffic and found a parking spot we both needed a cup of coffee. So we started there with two $2 coffees, no big deal. We strolled around with a cart, because everyone else has a cart — just in case.
By the time we made it to the restaurant we accumulated a couple throw pillows, some new kid dishes, and a desk chair — the current one is just … well, it just isn’t working.
Accumulating lunch for the family was a bit of a circus, so by the time we got our trays to the cashier there was soup, salads, rolls, crackers, baby applesauce, a kid’s plate of mac and cheese, an extra side of vegetables, and a cookie (Hey! who grabbed that cookie?). Twenty-five dollars and two trips to the soda fountain later our tummies were full. We achieved our mission to eat lunch at IKEA. We returned to our cart with a feeling of a job well done. Looking at the cart, the desk chair now seemed a bit silly, as did the pillows. We casually ditched them in a corner, but kept the kid dishes.
We made our way to the register to pay for our few items (by the way, when did the cart get so heavy?) watching wide-eyed as the cashier pulls item after item out of the cart. “Your total comes to 149 dollars.” What?!? We just came for lunch and a few little things! Ugh.
On the way home I thought over the purchases and suddenly realized — we forgot the wastebasket! Aha, that’s why we always need another one.
In my experience a light lunch of yellow pea soup at IKEA averages about $200.
The good news is, you can make the soup at home for under $5 and in less time than it takes to pack the kids into the car. The recipe is short and sweet. Leave the peas simmering all day in the crock pot and you don’t even need to leave home to dig into a luscious soup, perfect for filling hungry tummies or flinging in an epic food fight.
Easy yellow pea soup in the crock pot
2cups (14 ounces) dry yellow split peas
2stalks of celery with leaves, diced
6cups water
1tablespoon dry dill
½teaspoon salt
¼teaspoon pepper
Pair this pea soup with a grilled sandwich for the ultimate easy comfort food combo.
Rinse the dry peas in a mesh strainer and place into a 4 quart (or larger) slow cooker. Add the remaining ingredients, cover, and set heat to low. Leave to cook for 8 hours then serve hot.
If possible make this soup a day in advance; the flavor enhances after a day or two in the refrigerator.
Makes 7 cups.
Nutrition Information: 70 calories; .3g fat; 13g carbohydrates; 1.6g sugar; 184mg sodium; 5g fiber; 4.5g protein. Weight Watchers Points Plus: 2.
Rose McAvoy blogs at Light for Life at www.heraldnet.com/lightforlife and also at halfhersize.com. Email her at rose@halfhersize.com or find her on Twitter at www.twitter.com/halfhersize.
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