Ham and Bean Soup

In another "use up what's in the freezer" kick, I decided to make a ham and mixed bean soup. I had half a can of frozen mixed beans, a lot of ham steak, and plenty of base vegetables in the fridge, so that's how this soup came about.

Most of the recipes I looked at wanted me to blend everything, but I don't have an immersion blender, and pouring it all into a blender was too much hassle for me. So I didn't follow a recipe and came up with this on the fly. I sautéed carrots, onion and celery, then added garlic, a whole lot of herbs, the beans, diced ham, chicken stock, and the tomatoes. Usually I like recipes because then if it tastes funny, I have someone to blame other than myself, but this came out really well, so it's all good. (I wish I'd had a can of crushed tomatoes to use rather than diced, though.)

I really wish I could figure out the trick to plating and photographing soup. I suppose I could help myself out a fair bit by not traipsing around the house sloshing the soup around the bowl (so I wouldn't get the gross looking rim of soup scum). And I shouldn't have shot something with so much red in it against the red tablecloth.