Making Soup in the Pressure Cooker

This week I saw a recipe in the pressure cooker book that used split peas and bacon and since I had some of both and didn't have any more leeks I thought I would try it.

To start with it was just like making ordinary soup, fry and onion etc. One good thing was that the split peas did not have to soak overnight, the recipe said that you could just cover them in boiling water for an hour. That means that you can make this soup at shorter notice than is usual when using split peas.

I looked all through my pressure cooker instruction manual and put the lid on at the right time. It seemed to be making all the correct noises but I was a bit confused by the fact that the little indicator seemed to have already popped up before I tightened the lid !

I waited 15 minutes for the soup to cook and then took it off the heat and waited for the little red indicator to pop back down so the lid was safe to open. I waited and waited and finally opened the lid after about half an hour. The split peas were still hard ! It obviously had not come to pressure !

I debated what to do, cook the soup like usual, have something else for tea ? It was time to get MasterShoestring from school in about 20 minutes time and I did not want to have to spend money to pick up something for tea !

I decided to have another go and this time pushed the little red indicator down before I put the lid on. It worked and in 15 minutes I had perfect split pea and bacon soup. Everyone said how nice it was and that I should add it to the monthly rotation.

Now I'm wondering what I should cook next  ?!