Thursday, January 16, 2014

Hot soup for a cold day

Reader Holly sent an email mentioning she was making hot bean soup for a cold winter's day. She said her location which has two and a half feet of snow on the ground. The soup sounded so good I asked her to send the recipe, which she did. I don't have photos since I haven't (yet) made this myself, but it looks good enough to share. (Personally I wouldn't change a thing except to leave out celery, which I loathe.)
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This uses up all the left over handfuls of dried beans that I have at the end of the year. If you don’t have any dried beans, the grocery stores usually have a 10 bean bag for soup, etc.

1 bag of beans, 1 lb.
1 ham bone (ours was from our Christmas dinner)
4 carrots
4 parsnips
1 med onion
3 cloves garlic, crushed
celery
parsley
salt & pepper to taste

Allow to simmer for approx. 2 hrs, then take out bone and remove meat. Cut into little pieces and add back into soup.

This soup freezes well but I prefer to pressure can for 1½ hrs at 10lb pressure.

With a biscuit or slice of bread, it’s a meal.

7 comments:

  1. It's a wonderful recipe. I've been making it for quite a few years now, I found the recipe in a Taste of Home magazine back in the 90s, just that recipe suggests adding potatoes, or any other veggies you may want to add as well. I like to mix it up once in a while and add a quart of tomatoes to give it a little extra flavor.

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  2. It's soup day around here, too. I have cream of potato on the stove with lots of bacon and cheese. Health food!

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  3. Mmmmmmm... love me a good 10/15 bean soup!

    However, ours always comes out so thick when we follow the directions. Should we continue to add more water for the desired consistency?


    Steve Davis
    Anchorage, Alaska

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    1. Yes, that's all it takes. You can make it as thick or thin as you like.

      - Patrice

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  4. I have been making this soup for many years. My "secret" ingredient is some type of tomatoes -- canned tomatoes, tomato paste, or spaghetti sauce (good use for a little leftovers). It gives the soup a better color and a little more flavor. Katy

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  5. One important step that is not to be missed by us is we use only white pole type beans and we soak them in a bowl full of water over night with a whole carrot and 1 or 2 tablespoons of baking soda, depending on the size of the batch. What this does is allow us to remove most of the husks from the beans but more importantly, the carrot removes most of the gaseous side effects from the beans. Do not use the now blackened carrot, discard it with the husks.

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