Kitchen Jam

Image by photobunny via Flickr

Maybe it’s something about the temps for the last few days (it’s a bracing 20 degrees Fahrenheit as I type) or the need for something quick at night to finish out what have been some very long days. Or maybe it’s the general atmosphere that reading Anna Thomas’s Love Soup has infused into my kitchen.

In any case, I’ve souped up my kitchen several times in the last three weeks, using one of my canning stockpots to create some quickly simmered hearty soups from the best of winter vegetables.

But tonight, I decided to go even more local than the produce section. I made a batch of split pea soup based on ingredients in a package of June’s Spicy Split Pea Soup Mix.

I know – it’s soup from a mix. But it’s a really *good* mix, producing a soup every ounce as good as my own best from-scratch version. And June’s Split Pea is a *good* mix in the best possible way – it’s a product of Healthy Sisters’ Soup and Bean Works, a local company just about an hour away from me in Rochester, NY.

Healthy Sisters is a not-for-profit organization operated by Catholic Family Center/Restart in Rochester. The women of Healthy Sisters are, in the words of the Recipe Book hand-tied onto each bag of soup mix, “moving from dependence to independence in a program which supports self-esteem, fosters self-responsibility and nourishes development of skills to enter mainstream employement.” Together, they produce and market gourmet food products (eight varieties of soup and chili, including the split-pea mix I made tonight; three dip mixes; gift baskets.) My bag of soup mix was packed, tied and signed by Vanessa – thanks, V!

I first tasted Healthy Sisters’ soup at last fall’s New York State Harvest Festival. I’d seen the mixes on the shelf locally, but figured that I could always make my own soups. And of course, I can – but for the donation of a package of soup mix, I can also help women discover meaningful ways to make a living. That’s convenience that’s worth the price.

June’s Spicy Split Pea Soup has a serious kick (there’s some crushed red pepper, but refreshingly little salt in the spice packet in the bag.) I souped things up with half a dozen strips of nitrite-free natural-cured bacon and a cup or so of frozen mire-poix. And within an hour, I was warming up my night with a cup of homemade split pea soup: locally sourced, socially responsible, and let’s not forget – tasty! Soup’s on!

Here in central NY, Healthy Sisters products are available in Wegmans supermarkets (in the Nature’s Marketplace) and in some other natural/specialty foods outlets. Sisters’ products are also available in several other states, and from the organization’s online store.