Ham And Barley Soup

Way back when, in my restaurant management days, we learned a good way of cutting own on food costs was to re-use and repurpose as many of our leftovers as we could. Often times, those things found their way into the soup. Things haven’t changed. I still make a lot of soups with my leftovers. Turning things into soup can really extend what you have. If you only have little bits of this and little bits of that, you can easily end up with a lot of soup when you combine them all together. Such was the case with my latest big pot of soup, ham and barley soup.

I ended up with a lot more ham than I thought, which made this a very meaty and very hearty soup and meal.

I started off by making a stock from the ham bone once I got all the meat off.

Then I started getting everything ready for the soup. I decided NOT to use the spinach and tomatoes I had cut up, and will instead use them for something else later. I even used up the rest of my pork and barley filling from when I made my pork and barley pot pies, as well as adding more barley. Pork And Barley Pot Pie

When I make soup, I never measure anything. I just throw in everything until my big soup pot is filled. I had carrots, celery, onions, garlic, barley, red pepper flakes, salt & pepper, marjoram and thyme that all got tossed together to make my delicious soup.

The carrots, onions and celery and the seasonings were first to go into the hot pot with olive oil. I sauteed them for about 5-7 minutes, when the onions were translucent.

Next came the barley that got sauteed for a couple of minutes, before everything else got thrown into the pot.

I covered the pot, brought it to a boil, then reduced the heat to a simmer and let it all cook together for about 30-40 minutes, or until the barley was cooked and all the vegetables were tender, making sure to stir it every so often as well.

The result – DELICIOUS! I served it with some of my leftover sun-dried tomato focaccia and a glass or two of a crisp white wine, and dinner was served. 🙂 Sun-dried Tomato and Basil Focaccia It was a perfect soup day too, with the weather still being cold and snowy and us being under a winter storm advisory.

When life gives you leftovers, throw it all into the soup and mix it all up. Have a great day and make everyday great. Stay safe and stay well. ‘Til next time.