Ham and Bean..

..soup

Best ever ham and bean soup

As promised here is my super, secret, extra, special Ham and Bean Soup.

Cathy's Ham and Bean Soup

2 pounds dry great northern beans or navy beans
1 cup chopped carrots
1 stalk celery chopped
1 cup chopped onion
1 tsp minced garlic
1 tsp mustard powder
3 bay leaves
1/2 tsp white ground pepper
 1 cup white wine
1 ham hock (or left over Ham bone)
2 cups chopped ham
3 cups water
4 cups chicken broth
10 sprigs fresh parsley
2 sprigs fresh thyme

1.  Soak the beans overnight, be sure to use plenty of water
2.  Drain the beans
3.  In the soup pot, saute the carrots, celery and onion in a bit of olive oil until translucent.
4.  Add the garlic and saute 1-2 more minutes.
5.  Add the mustard powder, bay leaves and pepper, saute for 1-2 minutes
6.  De glaze the pan with the white wine and let it cook for 3-5 minutes
7.  Throw in the ham hock and chopped ham.
8.  Pour in the water and chicken broth and stir gently
9.  Lay the parsley and thyme on top of the liquid and bring to a boil
10.  Reduce the heat, cover and let simmer for 2-3 hours.
11.  Serves 10

Sauteing the veggies and spices

So the first step in making this soup recipe is planning ahead.  The beans turn out the best if you let them soak overnight.  There are ways of re-hydrating the beans faster, but I don't recommend them or use them :)

De-glazing the pan

Although the ingredient list is a bit long, there really isn't that much chopping.  Feel free to adjust the amount of carrots, celery and onion to meet your taste.  I usually add more garlic than is listed in the recipe because I love it.

Time to bring to a boil and let it cook :)

I only make my Ham and Bean Soup when I have purchased a ham from the Honey Baked Ham store.  Check out the blog entry for our first ham dinner.  After we finished eating, I cut all the meat off the bone and chopped it up to make soup.  Make sure to save the bone, it really adds something special to the flavor of the broth.

My recipe makes a big pot of soup, enough to feed my family of 5 twice.

Soups on!

Once the soup is done cooking, I freeze half of it for another night.  If your family is smaller, freeze it in smaller containers and you might get 4-5 meals out of it. 

Dinner is ready :)

Even my picky eaters like this soup, enjoy!

Ham..

its whats for dinner!

Ok, so dinner wasn't just ham.  It also included biscuits.  And it would have included mashed potatoes, but I vetoed that and substituted baby carrots.

Yes, it was Son 2's week to choose dinner.

Son 2 is probably the biggest fan of my cooking and I love cooking for him.  If he asks me for something, it pretty much guarantees that I will make it.

This probably has something to do with the fact that he was diagnosed with Failure To Thrive at a year old.  You know, left over Mom guilt, but nothing makes me happier than watching him eat.

But I digress, we were talking about dinner, so back to ham.

Actually a Honey Baked Ham, is in my opinion, the most delicious ham around.  Plus, a ham involves no cooking on my part - score!

I also planned ahead, so Thursday's dinner will be the best ever Ham and Bean Soup made with my left overs, stay tuned for the details.

I found these great organic baby carrots at Whole Foods this morning and decided to roast them.  I love roasting veggies, they taste great and nothing could be easier.  I just peeled the carrots, drizzled on some olive oil, sprinkled with salt and roast in a 425 degree oven for about 15 minutes.  Yum!

Ready for the oven

The most anticipated part of the meal were the biscuits.  I used this BHG Buttermilk Biscuit recipe.

Biscuits are super easy to make and those ones that come in the can can't compare to home-made.

First you add all of the dry ingredients and whisk together, then cut in the shortening.  Now lot's of people use food processors for cutting in shortening or butter, but I don't think it turns out as good as when you do it the old fashioned way with a pastry cutter.

Cutting in the shortening

Shortening the size of peas, ready for buttermilk

After the shortening is cut in, make a well in the dry ingredients and add the buttermilk.  Stir this together and when the dough gets to hard to work with a spoon dump it out onto a prepared surface for kneading.

I know that kneading scares people, but it is super easy.  Check out this video if you feel you knead help, knead help, get it??  Ok, bad joke.  Anyhoo..

Buttermilk!

Mix with a wooden spoon

Kneading the biscuit dough

Once you are all finished kneading, pat or roll the dough out into a rectangle.  Now, you can get all fancy and use a circular cookie cutter to cut out your biscuits, but I just cut mine into squares.  Usually because I'm in a hurry and cutting round biscuits wastes dough.

Ready for cutting

All cut and ready for the oven

Let's bake!  Fresh biscuits in 10 minutes

Yummy!

I serve my biscuits with jelly, lots of jelly.  But they also work well with honey or even Creamed Chicken over the top.

Enjoy!