Souper Sunday: ham

This recipe dates way back in my family. It has been passed down at least three generations if not more than that and is by far one of my favorite family meals. My Grandfather, who had a rough childhood, used to eat this growing up. It was super inexpensive to make and only has three ingredients. All you need is a ham bone, dried beans, and some water. Some very basic ingredients that make a spectacular dish. It may not be the prettiest thing you've ever eaten but it will be the tastiest.

Ingredients:

1 ham bone

1 (16 oz) package of dried pinto or cranberry beans

water (between 8-12 cups water)

In a large bowl or pot, add beans and about 6-8 cups of water. Cover and allow the beans soak overnight, at least 6-8 hours.

We always get our ham bone from Honey Baked Ham and usually buy 2 or 3 and put the extras in the freezer. Usually there is almost too much meat on the bone and we always cut some off and make ham sandwiches before we make this soup.

Place the ham bone in a large stock pot. You will want to fill the pot with enough water so that the water goes halfway up the ham (about 8-12 cups).

Below is how much water we usually use. Our family has been making this so long we just eyeball it. You can always add more water later in the process if you need to.

Bring the water to a boil, cover, reduce the heat to low and let simmer for 1-2 hours or until it starts to fall off the bone. You will want to turn the ham bone over 2 to 3 times during the cooking process. This will ensure that all of the meat get boiled and falls off the bone.

Once the ham is falling off the bone and the liquid is a golden color, turn off the heat and remove the ham and bone from the stockpot and set it aside. Your house will start to smell heavenly at this point!

When the ham and bone have cooled down, pick through the ham and remove all the bones and fatty pieces.

Drain the soaked beans and rinse them in cold water.

Add the drained beans to the to the stockpot with the reduced down ham liquid (aka liquid gold). Bring the beans to a boil over medium heat.

Once the beans have started to boil, reduce the heat to medium-low and stir back in the ham to the stockpot.

Stirring occasionally to prevent sticking, cook the ham and beans covered for about 1 & 1/2 hours or until the beans are tender.

Once the beans are tender, remove the pot from the heat and serve with cornbread and chow chow.

I hope that you enjoy this Southern comfort dish!

'Till next time,
Caroline

Happy New Year!

What’s a new year without a resolution right? I’ve been thinking the past few days about mine: the 876th diet attempt, being nicer, laughing more, yada yada yada. Last night as I was preparing my New Year’s Eve soups (see prior post) it was made abundantly clear as to what my new year’s resolution will be: simplicity. I need to stop trying to do it all. You know the ol’ "less is more," "quality over quantity," etc.

I was preparing three soups: taco soup, broccoli cheese and New Year’s Day good luck soup. In my mind this was going to be an uber-relaxing day full of great music, cooking, photographing and blogging my soups until my guests arrived. I was wrong. I got a way late start because I was trying to do too much like clean out a closet and reorganize my kitchen cabinets. I even made a run to the mall for hand soap and wash cloths because I couldn’t find any. I forgot that I wanted to make guacamole and I still needed to chop all of my veggies for my hummus. Needless to say, documenting these soups didn’t quite happen as I had hoped for as I was just starting cooking when my friend’s arrived.

Let me tell you why simplicity is my new resolution. Here’s what went wrong:

I bought fancy-smanshy bread and put it in the oven to cook. An hour and a half later I found it…charred unrecognizably. 2013: I’m buying crackers only.

I put my three soups in my brand-spanking-new 3 pot crockpot to cook and keep warm as we ate throughout the night. Forgot to plug it in. Didn’t notice until a couple of hours later. 2013: I’m preparing one soup. The other two will be frozen or canned.

Forgot to put in two main ingredients that thickens the broccoli cheese soup until it was too late. 2013: Eat it anyway.

2013: forget the organizing, cleaning, buying hand-soap and making appetizers.

Here is the recipe and pictures for New Year’s Day Good Luck Soup. Even though I probably didn’t do this recipe justice in pictures, it still turned out pretty good.

Ingredients:
1 package of carving board ham
2 celery ribs
1 medium onion
2 carrots
2 garlic cloves
2 (15-ounce) cans black-eyed peas
2 (14 1/2-ounce) cans low-sodium, fat-free chicken broth
2 (14 1/2-ounce) cans no-salt-added stewed tomatoes
1 (8-ounce) can tomato sauce
2 cups chopped fresh kale
1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley (Tbsp of dried parsley)
Salt and Pepper to taste

Chop your onions, garlic and carrots in a food processor.

Dice your celery and sauté in a stockpot along with your onions, carrots and garlic.

Add your broth, tomatoes, tomato sauce, black beans, kale and ham and simmer about 30 minutes. I chopped up the kale and used frozen black beans. I bought the pre-cooked carving board ham for convenience. I would recommend that you use canned black-eyed peas if you are in a hurry because the frozen took a while to become tender. You can substitute spinach for kale if you like.

At first I didn’t think I was going to like this soup but after it cooked in the crockpot for a while, the flavors married nicely and the kale and black-eyes peas cooked well. I enjoyed this healthy soup and I think it will be my new New Year's tradition!