Ham and Greens Soup

Hello everyone. Happy late Mother's Day to all of you. I had such a wonderful weekend of family and flowers. Speaking of flowers, I thought I would share a couple pics of some of my flowering bulbs. Now, I did use my cell phone, so I apologize if they are not the best quality.

                                                                             

We have had quite the lack of sunshine and warm weather here in Utah (to say the least) and so my flowers are pretty behind. Not that I am complaining. I am enjoying the daffodils and tulips.

Anyway, speaking of Mother's Day, we had a lovely Honey Baked Ham for dinner...but are now left with quite a bit of leftovers. In the past, I had become quite bored with using the leftovers for fried ham and eggs....Soooooo I played around a bit and found a wonderful recipe to use up the ham in quite the tasty spring soup.

You can really use just about any amount of leftover spiral cut ham. Honey Baked is gluten free...just make sure that the type you use is also free of the icky gluten stuff.

 Depending on how much I have left over, the amount I use is anywhere from 1-2 cups diced into pieces. Then take 2 tablespoons olive oil and heat it up in a large skillet. While the oil is warming, dice up 1/2 cup onion. Add the ham, onion, and 1 1/2 teaspoons bottled garlic or 1-2 large minced garlic cloves. Saute over medium high heat for 5 or so minutes until the onion is tender and the ham starts to get a bit browned and crispy.

Now take a big bunch of collard greens.

And roughly chop it up, discarding the stems.

Once the onion, ham, and garlic are done throw in the greens and cook them (stirring constantly) stirring constantly for about 1 minute until the greens are wilted and reduced in size.

Now take a can of black eye peas....

Rinse em and drain em....

Then pour 2-3 cups chicken broth (this will depend on how much ham you have and how brothy you like your soup and add the black eyed peas.

TADA!

Ham and Greens Soup Recipe

2 tablespoons olive oil
1-2 cups chopped left over spiral cut ham cut into bite sized pieces
1/2 cup diced onion
1 1/2 teaspoon bottled garlic or 1-2 large minced garlic cloves
2 cups roughly chopped collard greens
1 can black eyed peas drained and rinsed
2-3 cups chicken broth
salt and pepper to taste

In a large skillet warm up olive oil. Add ham, onion, garlic and saute over medium high heat until ham is browned and starts to get crispy. Lower heat to medium and add the greens stirring constantly. Cook for about 1 minute when the greens start to wilt and are reduced in size. Pour in broth and stir in black eyed peas.