Cabbage and Ham Soup

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It's beginning to get chilly.  Real chilly.  The type that a "good, large bowl of homemade soup helps to warm the tummy" kind of chilly .... and that is just what I did yesterday .... made homemade soup.

Cabbage and Ham.  I have never made this soup before but I had half a ham steak in the refrigerator that needed to be used up and I also had half a bag of the pre-packaged coleslaw cabbage mix (I never buy these but they were on deep discount last week for 29 cents a bag!).

I had been wanting to try this recipe and it was just the day to do it.  I had the ingredients but best of all, I had the chilly weather that is needed for homemade soup.  I love reading Lynn's blog and when she posted this recipe, I bookmarked it saving it for the perfect day.  Here is a copy of Lynn's Cabbage and Ham Soup:

Quick Ham and Cabbage Soup

1 Tblsp olive oil

1/2 C chopped onion
1/2 C thinly chopped celery
1/2 C thinly chopped carrot
1/8 C chopped red bell pepper
3 shakes of celery seed 
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 C chicken stock
3 C shred cabbage (about 1/4" thick and 1" long)
1 C diced ham
heaping tsp of Chicken Better Than Bullion
S&P to taste

1. Heat olive oil to medium.
2. Add onion, celery, carrot, pepper and celery seed, saute until onion gets translucent.
3. Saute garlic for one minute more.
4. Add chicken stock and heat to a simmer.
5. Toss in cabbage and cook until it just begins to wilt, about 15-20 minutes.
6. Add ham and heat through.
7. Adjust salt and pepper to taste.

Notes:

• The thing that takes the longest is for the carrots to soften up, make sure you slice them thin.
• If you don't have enough chicken stock use approx 1 C water to 1 tsp Chicken Better Than Bullion.
• It's important to add salt to this soup

As always with recipes however, I had to improvise a little.  

Hubby had used up all the fresh garlic and of course forgot to mention it on grocery day sooooo..... I used garlic salt instead.  Lynn mentions that the soup needs quite a bit of added salt and pepper so I reduced the amount of regular salt and it worked out just fine.

Wanting to use up the entire leftover ham steak and bag of coleslaw mix, my amounts were quite a bit larger than she mentions...it was alright though....I just adjusted the other ingredients to be comparable to the ham and cabbage.  

I also added barley....I love, love, love barley in soup.  It reminds me of my Grandma for some unknown reason.  Maybe she used it quite a bit.  I don't remember but it brings me warm fuzzies so she must have.  Mom, do you remember?

Not to be without warm, homemade bread when eating the soup, I started a loaf in the bread machine.

As the day progressed with the soup simmering on the stove and the bread baking, the house began to lose the chilly feeling.  It began to warm and smell divine.  The clouds were rolling in and the sky was darkening.  Just as we were about to sit down to dinner, the rain began to fall.  Perfect.

Sorry there are no pictures of the finished product...we were all just too hungry!  

Remember to give your loved ones a hug!