I am loving Feud: Bette and Joan and decided this month to offer TWO recipes for you to try out, one by Bette and one by Joan. More pix on the Recipe of the Month page if you are looking in April 2017 including a cute dog chewing on a ham bone, and Mr Rathbone playing a loaf of bread as it it were a concertina. If you are looking at some time in the future, you’ll get a surprise recipe of the month.

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I love Bette’s Split Pea Soup.  It’s one of the movie star recipes for which I often get a mad craving.  Cheap, easy and delicious.  Joan’s bread is bonkers.  But it is good.

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Bette Davis’ Split Pea Soup

Ingredients:

2 quarts (1900ml) cold water
1 1/2 cups (375g) split peas
Bone from ham and small piece of ham, diced
1 small onion
2 stalks celery
1 cup (250ml) evaporated milk
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon chopped mint, fresh or dried
Croutons to serve

Soak the peas overnight in water to cover. Drain, add the two quarts of water, ham and ham bone, onion and celery. Simmer slowly until the peas are perfectly soft (about three hours). Rub through sieve. Reheat, and just before serving, add the milk and seasoning. Serve with croutons.

The modern cook may prefer to puree all—or some—of the soup in a blender rather than rubbing through a sieve, which requires quite a bit of elbow grease. 

Joan Crawford’s Hot Buttered Bread

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Yep.  Bread.  Butter.  Hot.  Hot Buttered Bread!

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Let me know if you have a go at one, or both of these, I love to see photos too!

There’s still time to be in with a chance to win a copy of my Cooking With Joan Crawford book.  Just skip over to this post and let me know who you think is best – Bette or Joan?

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