Ham and Bean Soup

Grama Sue's Ham and Bean Soup

Ingredients: Beans, Ham bone, Onion, Salt and Black Pepper

This is one of those recipes that I really don't have a recipe for. I just kinda adjust the ingredients based on how much I want to make. I use a handful of beans for each serving that I want to make. Usually, I use just navy beans, but I had some kidney beans in my cupboard so I decided to throw in a couple of handfuls for some color. 

When it comes to food, I like adventure, but Grampa Tom is one of those "picky" eaters. He's pretty bean friendly (at least when it's on the mouth end) so I felt confident that he will be OK with this variation. I always try to make more than we will eat in one sitting (at least 8 servings) because this is one of the few things that I can feed him out of the freezer. Like I said, he's picky.

The first step is to soak the beans. You can do this by putting them in a pan, rinsing them off, covering them with at least twice the volume of water as beans (They will soak up a lot of water.) and leaving them over night. Or you can put them on the stove like I did today and simmer them for a couple of hours. 

Once the beans are tender, pour them into a colander and rinse again. 

Put them back into the pan along with the ham bone.

Chop the onion and add it to the pan.

Then add enough water to cover the ham bone. It should be about twice the amount of the beans again. You will boil off a lot of the water and if it still seems like to much towards the end, you can turn up the heat and boil it rapidly while stirring constantly or add a little flour to thicken the soup up. If your soup gets too dry, just add a little more water. It's important to get that ham bone mostly covered so that the meat will cook off the bone. If it looks like you're going to need too much water, use a smaller pan. 

Add some salt and pepper. I usually start out with around a teaspoon of each. Then when I take out the ham bone I add more if it needs it - and it usually does. If you have people in your household who tend to be a little gassy, you can add a teaspoon of baking soda at this point too. It will help.

Simmer the soup, stirring occasionally, until the meat is falling off the bone. This will take quite a while. Probably 3 to 4 hours. When it's ready, pull it out and scrape any remaining meat off and put the meat back in the soup.

Then serve it up in a John Deere soup cup! I like a little cheese sprinkled in mine!

God Bless You All!

~Grama Sue