Pea & Ham Soup

I'd made some pork stock, and had no idea what to do with it.  Had a quick look through the fridge, larder and freezer, and this is what happened...

Boil the leftover bones and any extra gravy from a Sunday Roast Pork until you get a good rich stock going.  Don't assume this will happen within an hour or so.  Keep at it.  Sometimes for days (turning it off when you go out or to sleep, natch!).

Heat some olive oil in a pan large enough to take the final amount of soup.  Fry up a handful or so of cubed pancetta, bacon, lardons - whatever you have - with a finely chopped onion and a clove or three of garlic (to taste, etc!), until the onions are soft and the lardons are nicely browned.

Add the stock and bring to the boil.  

Add "some potatoes" - useful instructions, no?!  I discovered at this point that I had no spuds.  I grubbed around in the cupboard to no avail, but a swift dash up to the top of the garden and a desperate rummage produced a handful of beautiful little King Edwards in a molten planter - bizarrely, and against all odds, the potatoes survived last year's conflagration!  So that makes this the first veg patch meal of the year!  Yay!

Aren't they beautiful?

Scrubbed up well, too....

Anyway, on with the recipe!

So, as many spuds as you like (or can find) depending on whether you fancy a thicker or lighter soup.  Chop them up into 1cm cubes, because you don't want them to take forever to cook.

Simmer until the potatoes are cooked, then add a big whoosh of frozen peas.  Bring back to the boil until the peas are cooked.

Add a splash of milk - all of these amounts are entirely flexible and dependent on how potatoey/peaey/milky you'd like your soup to be.  Whizz it up in the pan with a hand-held blender and season.  Then I challenge you to try to get it into a bowl with a swirl of creme fraiche and a sprig of mint rather than standing there eating it out of the pan with a big spoon!