Cheesy Veggie Ham Soup

So, I promised that I'd post the recipe from my soup I made on Sunday. Well, it was definitely a concoction! Have to say that only I ate it. Caleb was repulsed by the smell :). What he was smelling was the broccoli, but hard to overcome that impression, no matter how good the meal eventually was. The soup was made up of a bunch of extra stuff I had in the fridge from Christmas.

1/2 bunch of broccoli - chopped
1 cup carrots diced
1 cup celery diced
1/4 cup green onions chopped
1/4 cup diced green peppers
2 potatoes diced
2 cups milk (used 1 1/2% of the yummy milk that my sister brought from Denver)
2 cups chicken broth
1 cup diced ham
2 cups cheese - whatever you have on hand
salt and pepper
dash of red pepper flakes

Mixed the veggies, ham, milk, broth & seasonings in the crock pot. Let it cook on low for about 6-8 hours. Mine could have cooked longer before I ate it. I didn't decided until later on in the day to make the soup, so was hungry before it was done. Added cheese and let that melt in for another 1/2 hour. Served with some ranch flavored oyster crackers left over from the holidays. I had a lot of soup, so I ended up freezing most of it in individual portions. I'll keep you posted on how it tastes when coming out of the freezer.

The verdict - it was ok, not my favorite soup. For some reason the cheese never really melted. I ended up using some store brand cheddar I had left over from the holidays - maybe that was the problem. I really liked the ranch flavor that came with the oyster crackers though. If I make this again, I'll use velveeta instead of cheddar and will add in a packet of ranch dressing mix. I'll also leave out the broccoli in hopes that Caleb will actually try :).