Ham Hock And White Bean Soup Food

HAM AND BEAN SOUP

Steps:

• Heat a Dutch oven (you can also use a thick-bottomed soup pot, but may need to stir more often to prevent burning) over medium heat for about 3 minutes or so, until it's nice and hot. Add the oil and the onions. Cook until the onions begin to turn translucent. Add the garlic and cook for 1-2 minutes.
• Stir in the chopped celery and carrots, and cook for an additional 5-6 minutes. Add the beans, followed by the water. Increase the heat to high.
• Add the bay leaves, dried thyme, garlic powder, onion powder, white pepper, black pepper, paprika, and chicken bouillon paste. (If you don't have chicken bouillon paste, simply use chicken stock in place of the water.) Bring to a boil.
• Stir in the ham. I like to cut it into big shards/shreds for extra texture. (Sarah likes hers cubed and orderly though. I won't judge either way!) If you're using a ham hock instead of ham, you can add it in now.
• Reduce the heat to medium-low so the soup is at a somewhat energetic simmer--it should always be at a low bubble. Cook for 4-5 hours, stirring periodically. If the soup isn't cooking down, you may want to increase the heat to medium. Every stove is different, so don't just set it and forget it. Periodically check liquid levels.
• In the last hour of cooking, add the fresh parsley, and cook for another hour. It's done when the beans and carrots are tender, and the soup is thickened. If you used a ham hock, fish out any bones, and chop up any large pieces of meat and skin (keeping the skin is optional) that don't break down during the cooking process before serving.
• This soup is quite forgiving. If it ends up too salty for your tastes, just add water, and lightly mash some of the beans to release their starchiness and re-thicken the soup. If you are reheating the soup and there is not enough liquid, just add 1-2 cups of water to bring it back to your desired consistency.

WHITE BEAN 'N' HAM SOUP

Steps:

• Mash one can of beans; set aside. In a large saucepan, saute the carrots and onion in butter. Stir in the water, ham, seasonings and whole and mashed beans; cook over medium heat until heated through. Discard bay leaf.

WHITE NAVY BEAN SOUP WITH HAM HOCKS

Steps:

• Pick through beans to make sure there are no stones. Nothing sucks like breaking your teeth on a stone when it should be a bean!
• Place the beans in the crock pot; cover with water.
• Set on high cooking and cook for an hour.
• Now, some of you will argue that we should or should not season the beans because of the skins. Well, it is a moot point here as we are adding something salty to it anyway. Moving right along.
• Ham hocks go inches If you cannot find ham hocks, don't worry. The recipe will be fine. Just throw in a ham bone. No ham bone? You're killing me here! You could just use a couple slices of ham.
• Add your bay leaf to the crock pot. Don't worry - it will float. No panic. Really!
• Hack up the onion, a small dice is fine, toss it into te crock pot.
• Mince the garlic, again - you guesed it - into the crockpot. Are you with me so far?.
• Hack the potatoes into a medium dice, toss them into the crock pot. You will be needing them to give your soup some body - that stick-to-your-ribs quality. Besides, they are in season.
• Set all of that onto 10 hour on low cooking.
• Just before serving, remove the meat and bay leaf from the soup. Once the meat is cold enough to handle, shred it up!
• Puree up half of the soup with a hand blender. Do it right in the crockpot! Why waste or clean another vessel. If you have dishwashers, then don't worry about it. If you don't - you get the idea.
• Put the meat back into the soup.
• Now is the time to adjust for seasoning. We start off with the lemon juice, then we adjust the salt and pepper in stages.
• Taste a spoon full, think about the saltiness or the pepperiness. *I am sure that should be a word!*.
• Once the soup is where you would like it to be, ladle it up and serve it with that local artisan bread.
• Props to you! You just cooked something easy for Winter.

WHITE BEAN SOUP WITH HAM

Steps:

• Put smoked ham hock, beans, and liquid together in large saucepan.
• Turn heat on to medium high.
• Add onions.
• Bring mixture to a boil.
• Turn heat down to medium low and cover with tilted lid to only cover partially.
• Cook, stirring occasionally until beans are very soft and meat is falling apart at least one hour.
• Turn off heat.
• Remove meat and chop it up if desired and return to pot.
• Serve with cornbread.
• Yummy!