With all the plans we had for today, I wasn't sure if we would have soup tonight, but the snow storm this morning changes our plans and you get another soup recipe.
I don't have any ham stock in my freezer, but I did have a ham hock so I tried a quick one.
Ham Stock
1 ham hock
handful of baby carrots (worked out to be about 5)
about 6 small stocks of celery (I needed about 5 for tomorrow's dinner so I just pulled out the little ones on the inside)
3 bay leaves
Fill a soup pot with water, add all the ingredients - no need to chop the carrots and celery as you will just pull them out later. Cover the pot and bring to a boil. Drop the temperature to a low/med and let simmer for several hours. Pull out the hamhock and bay leaves. Pull the meat off the hamhock and return to pot.
.....
I waited too long to finish this so now I don't remember what I did. I probably cut up some potatoes, let them simmer in the ham stock. Blended the mix and then added cheese. I used velveeta in this one, it melts very nicely. Add salt, pepper to taste and finish with a bit a cream or half/half.
The real point of this potato soup recipe was to try the quick ham stock option - well not so quick, but still good.
