Slow-Cooker Split Pea Soup

Looks correct to me. If you're not interested in my back-of-the-envelope maths, you can stop reading after this paragraph. But to whether that's "a lot" of calories, well that depends on your height, level of physical activity, age, sex, etc. The average adult needs 8700 kJ/day, or 2080 kcal/day. So one serving of soup meets around 23%, or nearly one quarter of that need. Think of it as a proper meal, not an appetiser. :-) Split peas are the predominant ingredient. Wikipedia says 100 g of dry split peas contain 1425 kJ of food energy, though of course that's _after_ you cook them! Other sources give different values, which is unsurprising as measuring food energy is difficult and requires many assumptions. I'd guess there's also some variation between different cultivars and/or between individual harvests. Let's go with the Wikipedia figure, and an error margin of ±10% that's totally pulled out of my butt. This recipe uses 16 oz (454 g) of peas and makes four servings, so the split peas in a single serving will contain 1617 kJ. Converting to calories[1] we get 386 kcal. We can do the same for the chopped vegetables, assuming the same error margin. Collectively they contribute about 43 kcal per serving. Together with the peas, we're already somewhere between 386 and 472 kcal. The claimed "471 calories" falls within that range, albeit barely. There is also a small amount of food energy in the paprika powder, vegetable stock etc, but we don't need to get any more precise. ------ [1] "Calories" are an ambiguous unit. In physics and chemistry, 1 calorie (symbol "cal") is the amount of heat energy needed to raise the temperature of 1 millilitre of water by 1°C. The most common value in literature is the **thermochemical calorie** which is defined as 1 cal = 4.184 joules ("J") or 0.4184 kilojoules ("kJ"). However, the actual value varies slightly based on atmospheric pressure and on the water's starting temperature. But in the US, within the context of nutrition information or the dieting industry, a "calorie" instead means a _kilocalorie_ i.e. 1 cal = 4184 J = 4.184 kJ. Let's take, say, Twinkies as an example. If you look at the box of nutrition facts on the packaging, it says a single "serving" of two cakes contains 280 calories, so a single cake is 140 cal. But wait, each cake contains 15.5 g of sugar, that alone contributes 264 kJ. So that 140 cal _cannot_ mean 0.586 kJ, it must mean 586 kJ instead. Many nutrition researchers use "kcal" to resolve this ambiguity, and I've followed their lead. Other people suggest capitalising the word (e.g. "one Twinkie contains 140 Calories") but in practice this is rarely followed. Food sold in other countries like the UK will show nutrition facts in both kcal and kJ. Here in Australia, we just use kJ.

I did 15 minutes high pressure with a 10 minute natural release. It came out great! You may want to sauté the carrots, onion and fennel first.

Cooking this now. I also did not see the additional 3 cups of water. I did add 2 cups water a couple hours into it as it looked like it needed it. After reading your comments I went back and looked at the directions and added a third cup.

You can leave it out.

In other dishes I’ve used lemon or lime juice. Gives it a little tang.

You can totally leave it out or sub a veggie you like. Pea soup is very versatile

I would soak the peas as I do lentils for faster cooking. I just use stove top which also speeds it up. Seasoning is everything, usually to taste!! I like changing it up as I eat it during the week , adding different spices.

@jonnalee I assume you sauté the root veggies then spices before adding the peas and liquid. what is your stovetop cook time after adding the liquids?