For now, I'm sharing a meal that has become a favorite for me to make after Easter. I first made it 2 years ago after we had Easter dinner at our house, but I didn't last year, since we had dinner at my aunt and uncle's and I didn't have any ham bone remains to use. This year though, we had dinner at our house again, so it's time for another ham bone soup!
Now in all honesty, I'm actually not a very big soup fan. Something about doing more drinking when I want to be eating just doesn't jive with me and mostly makes me angry. The few exceptions are when the soup is chunky or substantial enough to satisfy my appetite and warrant the energy required to eat it. Thankfully, this soup meets those qualifications. And I say thankfully because my husband is in love with this soup and wants me to make it every year. The first time I made it I was gone for one night and most of the next day for a Political Theory retreat and when I got back it was all gone. He ate the entire pot.
I think I followed this recipe pretty closely the first time, but this year I've not been as attentive to the instructions, and I've done a sort of mixture between that one and this one. So feel free to do what you want, but if you want to know what I did, then keep reading. Warning: this meal requires a lot of vegetable chopping! Thankfully I really enjoy said chopping, but it is still somewhat time consuming. Just so you know. You'll need:
3-4 large carrots
1 large onion
3-4 celery stalks
3-4 garlic cloves
5-6 slices of bacon
1/2 (half) head of cabbage
small bunch of kale
1/2 (half) cup barley or lentils
Cook bacon ahead of time but don't let it get too crispy. Dry of grease and cut into bite-size pieces. Chop carrots/onion/celery and cook in soup pot with butter for a few minutes, then add minced garlic and cook another minute. Add a minimum of 8 cups of water to pot, add leftover ham bone (some meat still attached is good), 2t. of salt, many good shakes of pepper, the barley, and the cooked bacon, and once the water has started to boil, cover and simmer at med-low heat for about 20 mins. In the the meantime, chop a half head (if it's a small head) of cabbage and the kale and set aside. You can also gather any leftover ham slices you may have and cut into bite-size pieces. (I did this because I definitely needed some meat in my soup.)
Add ham pieces and cabbage after 20 mins and let cook another 20-30 mins. Then add the kale and cook 10-15 mins more. This is the part where you can probably just eat whenever you want to. The longer it cooks the more flavorful it will get, but it's not like it done at a certain time. You're probably so hungry at this point from smelling ham and bacon that you won't want to wait longer than required! And the good news is, it gets even better as you reheat it, so you won't be missing out at any point.
I ended up adding a little more salt and pepper and calling it good around 1hr. 15mins.
Of course you can go with all kinds of variations as you so desire. The NYT recipe calls for white beans, which I may have done the first time but I can't remember. The point is to fill it with whatever yummy, healthy things you want (do you see how healthy this meal is?!) and enjoy!
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