kale, carrot, chickpea, & ham soup

This soup turned out better than I ever thought it would be! I had several requests for the recipe so here it is for you folks!

I have been trying my hand at finding uses for my leftover pulp from juicing.  So far I have made bread, fiber chews, and vegetable broth out of the pulp.  The broth is by far my favorite thing to do with it.  

I think part of the reason it is so satisfying is because I get use out of my fruits and vegetables THREE times.  1st time: juicing  2nd time: soup broth 3rd time: compost.  We are going to have some great soil to use in our garden this year.

I save about 4 days worth of juice pulp.  This weeks collection included pulp from carrots, beets, kale, spinach, ginger, red and green apples, lemon, yellow peppers, and celery.  I dumped all of it in to a pot and put 2 parts water to one part pulp.  Then I added garlic, bay leaves, cumin, red pepper flakes and salt and set it on medium-low heat to simmer for about an hour.

When it was done I strained the broth from the leftover pulp in to another pot and pressed it down and let it drip for about 30 minutes to make sure I got as much as I could.  Then I dumped the remaining pulp outside in our compost pile.

The night before I made Kale Chips with some Mrs. Dash chipotle seasoning and coconut oil.  Right after they came out of the oven they were amazing!  But I must not have stored them properly because come morning they were a bit soft again.  In an effort not to let any of our produce go to waste I decided to use them in the soup.

In to the big pot I combined the broth, the kale chips, 4 sliced carrots, 2 cups diced ham (leftover from our weekend dinner with my dad!), 1 package of lipton soup mix, and 1 can of organic chickpeas and some spices.  I let it simmer for about 40 minutes until the carrots were soft. 

We were shocked at how delicious it was and even my two year old ate up the kale, chickpeas, and carrots and had it all again for lunch today!

Recipe:  Kale, Carrot, Chickpea, and Ham Soup

8 cups of juicer pulp vegetable broth. (see recipe above) or other vegetable broth

4 large chopped carrots

6 stalks chopped kale

1 can organic chickpeas

1 package Lipton soup mix

1 tbsp Mrs Dash Chipotle seasoning

2 tsp chicken stock granules\

2 cups chopped cubed ham

Combine all and simmer about 40 minutes or until carrots are soft.