By Jake Mathias

Hello, fellow eaters and welcome to another week of Food Swings. I hope everyone’s holiday week went well and everyone is safely settling back into the normal routine and the new year.

If your family is anything like mine, we always make way more food than we’ll ever eat and we’re stuck with leftovers for weeks until they all go bad and get thrown out. I don’t really like leftovers but I don’t really like being wasteful- meat is expensive and versatile and I’m always able to do something with it, usually by putting it in soup.

Christmas is a big ham holiday so I figure that’s what we’ll focus on.

You will need:

1 lb diced ham
1 ham bone
2 carrots diced
2 stalks celery dice
1 small onion diced
1 cup dried split peas
1 tsp cracked black pepper
2 quarts chicken stock
1 tbsp olive oil

Saute the veggies and ham in the olive oil until lightly browned. Add in ham bone, chicken stock, peas and pepper and bring to a low simmer. Continue simmering, stirring occasionally for about an hour until the peas soften and break down into a loose paste. Add a cup of water if the liquid reduces to ham and veggie level to keep from burning.

Serve with some buttered crusty bread.

And remember, Live to Eat.