Pea Soup with Carrot Caviar in a Bacon Ring

My first attempt and incorporating a sodium alginate gelled item into a real dinner has worked. The Split Pea Soup was more or less standard. I used the "leftovers broth" from last week with split peas, onions, ham and ground coriander.

The carrot caviar was pureed carrot with sugar, salt and a little water. The hand blender did a fantastic job of getting the alginate into the water without becoming a mess.

The bacon ring in the picture is V2.0. I first tried making the rings around my ring molds in the oven. That led to a crazy sticky mess of baked on bacon that wouldn't come off.
For the second attempt I used a paper towel roll, covered in parchment and cut off the size of the round of bacon secured with a toothpick. Three minutes in the microwave and voila, bacon rings!