ham and vegetable soup

you know how you always want soup when it's cold and you're sick?  and how you never want to cook homemade soup when you have that runny nose?  astonishingly, i made some soup about a week or so ago -- just days before i came down with a cold.

it wasn't a terrible cold as colds go (i've fought much, much worse viruses before), but i was very glad that i had some pre-made soup.  even if it wasn't chicken, it was still pretty darn tasty.  i really don't know why my mom gave me the ham stock (i figure it was the remnants of a honeybaked ham), but i certainly won't complain!

ingredients:
- one container of ham stock, with ham bits (i'd guess a couple quarts)
- one can cannellini beans
- one can black beans
- one can corn
- one can stewed tomatoes (i use the kind with basil and garlic)
- carrots (i used about three)
- garlic (i used about four cloves)
- kale (i used about 1/4 pound)
- celery seed
- seasonings (sage, thyme, rosemary, pepper, basil)

preparation:
i put the ham stock in my big soup pot and added the beans, carrots, tomatoes, celery seed, and seasonings.  as i brought the pot up to a simmer, i peeled and chopped the carrots, and i smashed and chopped the garlic.  those ingredients also went in the pot.

while the soup is simmering (covered, stirring occasionally), i washed the kale and pulled the leafy bits off the stems.  maybe the stems are edible, but i treated it like the thick parts of lettuce that i always pull off.

after the soup simmered about an hour (my metric for doneness was when the carrots began to get tender), i added the kale.  at this point, i simmered/stirred the soup for another five minutes, after which i served and enjoyed.

verdict:
not that i mind, but i'm mildly surprised that the ham stock wasn't saltier.  maybe all the other vegetables sort of watered it out (i try to stick with vegetables with low sodium content), and maybe i just added the right mixture of seasonings.  either way, it seemed like an unexpectedly light soup.  the kale works, though it's better after reheating; i think it may take a little longer than five minutes to cook the kale all the way...but with five minutes, it doesn't make the kale overcooked on subsequent nights.

i'm undecided whether i like this soup better than the roasted vegetable and chicken soup, but it's certainly worth maintaining in the recipe bin!