Ham, vegetable and barley soup

I had some people over for lunch the other weekend and as usual I over-catered. I had a heap of left-over ham, chicken and roast beef. The thought of how many sandwiches I would have to make to use up the meat was too much to bear. I thought of making sandwiches and then freezing them, but that had no appeal either. So I decided on some soup. I picked up a bag of soup mix at the supermarket. The 500g pack contained barley, red lentils and yellow and green split peas and away I went.

Ham, Vegetable and Barley Soup

250g soup mix - half the pack (I used Mckenzie's brand)

Olive oil

1 onion, diced

2 medium carrots, diced

2 large celery sticks, diced

2 garlic cloves

400g cold ham, diced (I had leftover ham, chicken and roast beef)

1/4 cabbage, sliced

450g (approx) sweet potato, diced

Stock or water, as needed

Boil a kettle of water. Rinse the soup mix then soak the soup mix for about 30 minutes in the boiling water and cover with a plate or some foil.

Heat the oil in a pot and add the onion, carrots, celery and garlic and cook them over a medium heat for about 5 - 10 minutes. Add the drained soup mix, diced meat, cabbage and sweet potato, and enough water or stock to cover. Bring to the boil then cook over low heat for about 45 minutes, or until vegetables, barley and lentils are soft.

When cooked, check the seasoning and add salt and pepper as needed. This will depend on how salty the stock (if used) and the meat is.

Had about 5 or 6 serves to put in the freezer.

Note:

You could use any combination of cold meat.

The vegetables could be changed.

Instead of soup mix you could use just barley or lentils or split peas.