Patient, Patience and Comfort Food

The patient, pretty nervous, but happily sedated in pre-op.

The patient, pretty groggy and heavily medicated in post-op. Nice hair net, huh?

Our patient is recovering slowly, but recovering none-the-less. For the past two days, I changed my name to Nurse-Mommy. I've been full-time mommy to two kids and full-time nurse to one husband. All the while, trying to keep up with my normal weekly chores {cooking, shopping, cleaning, etc}. I've lost my patience and my cool {a few times internally and externally}. You never quite realize how much your spouse does until they are rendered useless {I'm sure he would say the same about me, right?}. I thank my lucky stars, I'm not a single parent and I think highly of those single parents out there. You are truly amazing! I also think VERY highly of nurses. All of you nurses, use-to-be nurses and soon-to-be nurses are right up there next to sainthood in my book!

When you aren't feeling well, comfort foods make you, well, more comfortable. So we've been making lots of comfort foods to get the patient well soon. The night of the surgery I made Ben's self-proclaimed favorite dish, Chicken and Broccoli Casserole - courtesy Nancy Click and yet another delicious A Thyme to Celebrate recipe {seriously, does anyone want to buy one?}.

Last night I made a comfort food from my past, Ham and White Bean Soup {which includes pretty much just that, except the beans are soaked overnight and then everything is slow cooked in a crock pot all day}. I decided to add a little modern twist on this old Southern goody and combined it with my other favorite food type, Italian. Here's the re-fashioned old-fashioned recipe that I'm calling....

Tuscan Ham and Bean Soup

1 (32 oz.) box of chicken broth

1 bone-in ham steak, fat trimmed and diced

2 cans of Northern Beans, undrained

1 can of Hunts Fire Roasted Diced Tomatoes, drained {you could also try sun dried tomatoes here to give it a little different flavor - I had the fire roasted tomatoes on hand, so that is what I used}

3 Tbsp. of unsalted butter

1 sprig of fresh rosemary

1/2 tsp. of dried thyme

1/2 tsp. of dried basil

1 tsp. sea salt {I used Crazy Jane's}

1/4 tsp. of pepper

season salt, to taste

1/4 cup water

2 Tbsp. of corn starch

Bring chicken broth to a boil over medium-high heat in a large soup pot. Add diced ham and canned beans, return to a boil, then reduce heat to medium. Add butter, rosemary, thyme, basil, sea salt and pepper and continue to boil for approximately 10 minutes or until rosemary falls off of the stem. Remove rosemary stem from soup. Add diced tomatoes. Mix water and cornstarch in small bowl. Pour into soup and boil for 5 minutes while stirring, until soup is thickened. Add seasoned salt to taste.

I love it when I wing it and a recipes comes together - and tastes REALLY good.

Here's to comfort foods and a speedy recovery {for Ben's sake and my sanity's sake}!