Another round for Saint Pat's Day!

Ok, admit it, you like Saint Patrick's day. Not only is it an excuse to get drunk and refer to your inebriated condition as "pissed" (with a terrible Irish accent hopefully), but it's a reason to eat super-yummy foods that you normally wouldn't eat on a normal day of sobriety.

So in addition to my beloved gut-bomb of corned beef and cabbage, I salute all the Irish lads and lasses everywhere (even those of you who are only Irish for a day) with a split-pea soup. Not JUST a split pea soup, but a split peas soup with a cream finish served in a baked potato shell, topped with chive, monterey jack cheese, and one of the culinary Saints, bacon.

This dish is the result of a pleasant mistake. I had originally aimed for a twice-baked potato with soup on the side. However when I went to make my potato filling, I ended up with more of a hodge-podge of lumpy sour cream, heavy cream, butter, intermingled with chunky potato bits. Let's just say that it was something not even a blind-drunk and starving leprechaun would eat. But the Luck of the Irish must have been on my side, because in the midst of my kitchen-craft dismay, I realized that I had a hollow baked potato skin just sitting on the counter...Sitting on the counter next to a simmering bowl of split pea soup. It was a light-bulb above the head moment.

I finished the soup and ladled it into the potato bowl, tossing in a few stray chunks of good potato for kicks, and then put a healthy dose of monterey jack cheese on the top. A few minutes in a hot oven turned the shredded cheese into a melded batch of lucky goodness. A little chive on one side, and a healthy stack of bacon on the other, and I had myself an Irish bowl of hot and thick melty goodness. I don't know if Split Peas are Irish, but they're green, so for the next 24 hours, that makes them Irish. Plus I'm betting everyone will be too drunk to call me on it! (and hopefully they will also forget that "Melty" is not a word.)

Visuals aside, this soup boasts a sublime simplicity. A dish truly borne of the salt of the earth, and the toil of hard working farmers.It's tough to get more humble than potatoes and peas. The potato skin was crispy and firm, and did not get soggy from the soup. The earthiness of the split peas compliments the potato beautifully, and is given a velvet-like body from the cream finish and a bit of butter. The seasonings, like the dish itself are simple; a little bacon for smokiness, some celery, carrot and onion, a dash of garlic powder, 1 bay leaf, and some salt and pepper. Crisped potato skins make for a great batch of croutons for sopping up what your spoon doesn't get. All the ingredients here married into a dish of gastronomic elegance that belies the most humble of origins. Just peas and potatoes out for a pint or ten with a few well-seasoned friends. Makes me want another round just writing about it.

453 lucky recipes to go!