I don’t know about your Easter plans this years, but ours consisted of a lot less people with a lot more leftovers. After searching the interwebs for some inspiration I came up with a few different “leftover” recipes, but this soup might just be my new favorite. I was talking to Mom about using up leftover ham and she was making a pasta dish with some mustard sauce and I thought how good that would be in a potato soup. So ladies and gents, here is the final iteration of those ideas all combined into one tasty, hearty and healthy soup. Yum. Forgive the lack of photos, I was too busy licking the spoon.

Recipe

2 cups leftover ham – diced
2 cups kale – torn into bite sized pieces
2 lbs potatoes – peeled and diced into 1″ pieces
4 cups of chicken broth
1 cup of water
1 onion – diced
1/2 cup light cream, fat free half and half, or milk
2 tbs of dijon, brown, or garlic aoli mustard (I buy mine at Trader Joes)
1/2 clove of roasted garlic
1/2 package of frozen corn
2 tsp thyme
1 tsp flour
2 tbs of olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 425. Take your garlic clove, and remove the top, drizzle with olive oil, put the top back on (as best you can, since the cloves usually fall apart a little) and wrap in tinfoil. Pop this in the oven for 30 minutes.

While the garlic is roasting, add the olive oil to a dutch oven or other high sided pan and bring up to medium heat. Once the oil is hot, add the onion and saute until translucent, about 8-10 minutes. Sprinkle the flour over the onions and whisk continuously for 2-3 minutes to cook out the flour taste.

Next, slowly pour in the chicken broth and water and continue stirring. Once everything is incorporated gently toss in the potatos (you don’t want the broth to splash out!) and bring everything to a boil. After boiling for 5 minutes, turn the heat down (to about medium/low) and gently simmer everything for 20-30 minutes or until potatoes are fork tender and just starting to fall apart.

To make the soup extra creamy, grab an immersion blender and blend about 1/3 of it up. You can also skip this part if you like it chunkier. Totally up to your tastebuds.

Once the garlic has finished roasting, squeeze 2-5 cloves into small dish and mix with the mustard. Add this to the soup and if you can, use the immersion blender to whip it up a few times. This helps incorporate it better than stirring alone. Otherwise, just whisk away!

Once the garlicky mustard is mixed in, add the corn, ham and kale and cook till heated through. Simmer for another 20 minutes or until soup has thickened a bit. Serve with some crusty bread – this peasant bread is my family’s favorite – and dig in!

Bon appetit!