Split Pea Soup

The flavor of this soup is incredible. It's one of those dishes that tastes 100 times better than it looks, lol. MMMMM. 1 16 oz bag dried split peas
1 meaty ham bone
5-6 carrots, chopped
1 onion, chopped
salt & pepper

Boil ham bone (or just a big hunk of ham if you don't have a leftover [meaty] bone) in about 8 cups of water for 10 minutes ... just long enough to heat the ham and draw some of the juices out of it. Remove ham and let it rest on a cutting board. Rinse peas in a collander and then add them to the pot of ham stock. Boil peas for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Dice up the ham meat, discarding any fat. If you used a ham bone, throw out the bone. Return the meat to the pot, after the peas have boiled for 30 mintues. Then add the chopped onion. Once the peas have started falling apart and are almost completely disolved, add the chopped carrots. Soup is done when all of the peas have fallen apart and the carrots are tender. There shouldn't be any [visible] peas remaining. Salt [about 1 TBS] and pepper to taste.

*It usually takes my peas about 1 hour to completely fall apart and cook all the way through.