Ham Soup

I have my friend Bev to thank for this inspiration.  When we visited her and her family about a year and a half ago, she made a ham soup and Steve and I absolutely loved it.  So I've made ham soup a couple times since, each time turning out different, depending on what I had on hand.  I had leftover ham from Easter, so I wanted to make a soup and some quiche.

I put the ham bone, with some ham still on it, in a big pot of water.  Brought it to a boil and then covered it and let it simmer for at least an hour and a half, a bit more if desired, till the ham is falling off the bone.  I then ended up cooling and putting it in the fridge, because I had started too late that afternoon to finish for dinner.  So I pulled it all out today to make the soup.  The fat had settled on the top, so I left some of it in the container, but used some too.  The gelatinous stuff left after baking the ham adds tremendous flavor to the broth.


INGREDIENTS:

Ham broth
Leftover ham, cubed
1/4 c butter
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 medium onion, sliced
2 stalks of celery, chopped (I like to peel the stringy side to make it easier to eat)
2 handfuls of baby carrots sliced
5-6 baby red potatoes, cubed
8 oz. pasta of your choice
1 - 15 oz. can butter beans
Approx. 4 cups of water


To make the soup, before heating the broth, I chopped up the garlic, onion, celery and carrots while the butter melted in the pot.

 Then I added all the veggies except the baby red potatoes to the melted butter and let them sweat or soften up a bit. Before the veggies caramelized, I added the ham broth and the water. 

 Then I brought the broth to a boil and added the baby red potatoes.  After letting the potatoes cook for about 5 minutes, I added about 8 oz. of pasta (3/4 of a 12 oz. box).

I also made 2 ham quiches.  I'd love to share the recipes with you for the crust and the quiche, but they are from 2 of my cookbooks and I am learning about copyrights.  I tweaked the quiche recipe to fit what I was doing, but I always go back to this recipe when I forget the measurements.  If I can get permission to share these recipes, I will in the future.  This pie crust is one of my favorites.  It's from The Beverly Lewis Amish Heritage Cookbook.  It goes well with quiche, Shoo fly Pie, Blueberry Custard Pie...well, you get the idea, it's a very good recipe!  I'm going to ask my friend who shared the Blueberry Custard Pie recipe with me if I can share it with you.  I haven't mastered the art of rolling out a perfectly round pie crust yet.  And, I like the rustic look.  It's not that I don't like the perfectly pinched crust, it's just that I like the crust so much, that I don't want to take the extra off to make it look perfect and then hope that I end up with a piece with the extra crust.  Are you smiling with me about that?  I love a good pie crust.  Here the quiches are ready to go in the oven.

Fresh from the oven, ham quiche goodness!  Can you smell that?  Oh, I'm sorry!  I bet you wish you could!

And voila!  Ham soup and ham quiche.  Yum!