Ham Bone Soup

Ham and potato vegetable soup (Almost complete)
Will add more veggies to the mix before serving

The snow started yesterday and has been falling on and off since, here in Orillia, Ontario. When I got up this morning and looked out at the white blanket of snow I knew my fist mission for the day was to make a big pot of soup.

Perfect day for a hot bowl of soup

We'd had a ham for dinner yesterday so I used the bone and leftover ham today for the soup. Not feeling like having pea soup,(what I usually make with the ham bone) I decided to make a vegetable ham and potato soup.

The thing I enjoy about making soups is you can use either a ham bone, beef bones, turkey or chicken carcass and create delicious flavorful soups with what you have on hand. I rarely follow a recipe when making most soups, I just add a bit of this and a bit of that, taste and adjust.

For today's Soup  I started out with a ham bone in a large pot covered in water. While this was boiling I cut up the following ingredients:

• 1 large cooking onion chopped
• 2 ribs of celery chopped
• 2 carrots sliced
• 4 potatoes cubed into bite size pieces (place into a bowl of water)
• 2 garlic cloves thinly sliced 
• 2 cups of leftover ham cut into bite sized pieces

Once the ham bone had boiled for 30 minutes I removed it from the pot, and cut off the remaining meat and added the meat back into the pot. I then added 1 box (900 ml) of chicken broth, along with the celery, onions, carrots and garlic. Time to spice it up a bit.

• Fresh ground pepper
• about 1 tsp of thyme
• 1 tbs of powdered chicken broth
• a few dashes of marjoram
• 3 shakes of Tabasco sauce 

I brought the soup to a boil after adding all of the above except the potatoes. I then added 1/2 cup of green lentils and the potatoes. Covered the soup, and simmered for an hour. At this point I turned the soup off and about a half hour before serving I'll add some frozen vegetables such as corn, peas and any little bits of frozen vegetables I may have in the freezer.

Should there be any leftovers after dinner I will freeze the soup into individual servings for lunches.