Ham Bone Soup

I'm using my new purple crock pot and my leftover ham bone to make a ham and potato soup tonight.

Ingredients:

2 cans chicken broth
4 cups water (to mostly cover bone in crockpot)
1 leftover ham bone (from spiral cut ham, most of meat removed)
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
3 cups peeled and diced potatoes  (about 2 large potatoes, 1 pound)
1/2 cup diced celery(1 stalk of celery)
1/2 cup diced onion (1 medium onion)
1/2 cup diced carrot (1 large carrot, 6 to 8  baby carrots)
1/2 bell pepper, diced
1 cup diced cooked ham
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 tablespoons butter
5 tablespoons all-purpose flour
14 ounce can evaporated milk
1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste
1/2 teaspoon ground white or black pepper, or to taste 

Instructions:

1. Place ham bone and leftover ham scraps/gel into a crockpot with broth and water
2. Add apple cider vinegar, cook on high for 3 to 4 hours
   
   
3. At least 1/2 hour before you want to serve soup, add in diced potatoes
4. At least 15 minutes before serving, saute onions, celery, and carrots in olive oil for about 5 minutes or until onions soften.
5. Remove ham bone from pot.
   Optional - Blend 1/3 or so of potatoes in food processor & return potato puree to pot
6. Scoop onions, celery, and carrots into soup, add diced ham ham as well
7. Melt butter in pan where you cooked the veggies
8. Stir in flour, and cook for at least 1 minute at medium to remove floury taste
9. Slowly stir in evaporated milk, whisk to keep smooth.
10. Let milk thicken for 4 to 5 minutes.
11. Stir in milk into crockpot
12. Taste, add in salt and pepper as needed

Carole's Notes:

Serve with cornbread or biscuits and a green salad. This turned out like a chowder - light broth with small pieces of ham and veggies. I plan to make it again the next time I have a leftover ham bone.



I used my leftover spiral cut ham (Smithfield?) from Costco. (For Christmas, I placed it on 1 cup of brown sugar, and rubbed the spice packet and 1/2 cup brown sugar over the ham. It cooked in a crockpot on low for 6 or so hours, basted once or twice with its juices.)

Soup recipe is adapted from http://allrecipes.com/recipe/56927/delicious-ham-and-potato-soup/