Most people don’t react positively when you tell them we’re having split pea soup for dinner.  Last night I made an entire bag (13 servings) of split peas with custom bacon bits and it was devoured.  I found the recipe in a Soups cookbook by Williams Sonoma.  Basically, you sauté a lot of onion, a few carrots and celery, add some stock, a couple slices of bacon, the dried peas and freshly chopped parsley and marjoram.  I didn’t have the marjoram and we didn’t miss it.  This soup is best made in an authentic Dutch oven. 
It is a hearty soup that cooks in relatively short time – about an hour if you have the broth on hand.  By puréeing a quarter of the recipe and adding it back to the soup, it gives it a creamy texture sans cream.  Towards the end, I made the bacon bits by frying thick slices of bacon and chopping them to crumbles after they cooled.  I served them on the table as a garnish.  It helped defray the complaints about the lack of meat at the table. 
This was our main dish and I served it with a baguette.  There were no leftovers.  At less than $2 per person, I’m beating the cost of  a Happy Meal.