Easter Leftover Problem Solved - Ham and Lentil Soup

Someone's been hiding this soup from me all my life. I thought lentils were pasty, starchy half-moons of torture. Then I got enlightened. This is a wonderful, flavorful soup that you could serve for an appetizer on a cold evening, or make a meal of it.

Easter is coming, and that usually means ham. Which in turn means leftover ham. Either make this soup after Easter, or wrap and freeze your ham bone until the dead of winter, take it out and use it in this soup. In fact, once you try it, you will be using all sorts of excuses to make this soup...a rainy day, a cloudy day, a partially sunny day when it MIGHT rain. Whenever you make it, you will not be disappointed.

Yield: About 3 1/2 Quarts

1 leftover smoked ham bone or 2 smoked ham hocks
1 pound lentils (about 2 1/2 cups), picked over and rinsed
1 cinnamon stick
1 bay leaf
4 cups chicken broth
8 cups water
A few sprigs of fresh thyme

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3 onions, chopped coarse
1 cup chopped carrot
1 cup chopped celery
5 cloves of fresh garlic, sliced
1 Tbs. olive oil

In a 6- to 8-quart pot combine the first 7 ingredients. Take the remaining ingredients and saute them over medium heat in a skillet with the olive oil, some salt and pepper until they are slightly tender. Add to the pot. Simmer the soup, covered partially, stirring occasionally, 1 1/2 hours (until lentils are tender and ham begins to fall off the bone). Discard bay leaf and cinnamon stick, as well as the stems from the thyme and remove meat from bone or hocks. Chop meat and stir into soup. Salt to taste.