Soups On.....again!

The last time we went up to the cabin, we noticed signs all along the road advertising "mountain cabbage".....curious, I looked it up on the internet and, according to urbandictionary.com, it is "Marijuana, weed, cannibis, et al". Hmmm......can't be! So, on the way back home we decided to stop and check it out......man, they are HUGE! I normally use a whole head of cabbage to make my cabbage soup.....with this stuff, I only used 1/4 of this thing!
I started off with the "holy trinity", otherwise known in French cooking as a mirepoix.....onions, carrots and celery, with a 2-1-1 ratio respectively. I allowed my dutch oven to get hot, added 1 tablespoon of olive oil, turned the heat down to medium to medium high and added the veggies. Allow them to "sweat" or get a bit translucent.

After that I added about 5 cloves of minced garlic (sorry...I love the stuff!) and the chopped cabbage and tossed until it became a bit limp. I then added my chicken stock. Lately I've been using Wolfgang Puck's Free Range Organic Chicken Broth....it's almost buttery and is so delicious!

After letting the soup simmer on low for quite some time, I decided to add some chopped ham and after letting that heat through, it was time to eat! I grabbed a stick of crusty bread and enjoyed my soup! Soup is only ONE of the reasons while I love the fall so much....and the first few pots of the season are always my favorite because it seems I've been waiting so long for them!

I also added some extra flavor by added a frozen chunk of chicken drippings from a chicken I had baked a few days earlier. I strained off the drippings into a container and put it in the fridge. Once it was cold, I scraped off the fat and put the remaining drippings into a freezer bag and put it in the freezer. I just can't let good flavor go to waste!

If you decide to make this soup and need some "mountain cabbage", let me know.....I still have 3/4 head in my fridge....that means 3 of you can enjoy a pot of this soup!