Homemade Ham Stock For Soup

1 ham bone, with some meat left on
1 leek*
3 large carrots*
1 onion, chopped*
2 stalks celery, with tops*
Olive oil
1 head garlic, in cloves
Herbs to taste
Any left over, slightly old vegetables, frozen or otherwise

To make mirepoix(*), coarsely chop leek (after carefully washing to remove dirt), celery, carrots, and onion, then saute in the bottom of the stock pot with the olive oil until the vegetables are slightly crispy. Then add the hambone, garlic and herbs to the pot and fill the pot with water until it just covers all of the ingredients. Bring to a boil, then turn heat down to a gentle simmer so it’s just bubbling and let it cook for 2 ½ hours. Remove bone from stock, so the meat can be removed, separating it from the fat and discarding all fat and the bone once all of the usable meat is removed. The carrots can be left in the stock, but the older vegetables may need to be strained out from the rest. Reduce the stock so all of the flavor is brought out and add the meat to the broth. It is now ready to freeze, be canned or make either split pea or lentil soup. Will make about 4 quarts of soup ready stock. Just add the split peas or lentils and some more carrots, leeks and garlic.

* a mirepoix is the French word for the sautéed carrots, celery, leeks and onion used to bring more flavor out into the stock. Browning them makes a richer tasting stock, which adds a lot of flavor to the finished soup.

Ginnilee
Lady Lavender of Teal

Chicken a la Cristo 
(this is one of my cat's favorites, so it's named for him ;-))

 

3 chicken breasts, diced

1/2 bottle white wine (I use Riesling or Gwertzenheimer)

1/2 bottle Italian salad dressing

Garlic, minced (it's up to you to decide how much you love garlic)

1 tsp basil

1/2 tsp oregano

1/2 tsp marjoram

 

Put diced chicken in the crock pot, adding the wine, salad dressing, garlic and herbs. Cook on low for 8 hours until liquid reduces. When the chicken is close to ready, cook the pasta of your choice, butter it lightly and coat with parmesan cheese, then toss the chicken in and mix together. The basic recipe is now done, but you can add the following for variation.

 

chopped spinach, to make it Florentine

cooked, diced tomatoes and zucchini

just some cooked peas (my preference)

marinated artichoke hearts

mushrooms

 
Ginnilee
Lady Lavender of Teal