White Bean And Ham Hock Soup With Arugula And Corn Bread Croutons Food

NAVY BEAN AND HAM HOCK SOUP

Steps:

• Rinse and sort the navy beans. Place in a Dutch oven with 8 cups water. Bring to a boil for 2 minutes and remove from heat. Let stand, covered, until beans are softened, about 5 hours.
• Drain the navy beans and discard the soaking liquid. Rinse beans and return to the Dutch oven. Add ham hocks, chicken broth, 4 cups water, onion, parsley, garlic powder, basil, black pepper, oregano, nutmeg, and bay leaves. Bring soup to a boil; reduce heat and simmer until beans are tender, about 1 1/2 hours.
• Mix carrots, celery, and potato flakes into the soup until well combined. Cover and simmer until vegetables are tender, about 30 minutes more.
• Take ham hocks from the pot and place on a cutting board until cool enough to handle. Remove meat from the bones and cut into bite-sized pieces. Return meat to the pot and warm through over medium heat, about 3 minutes.

WHITE BEAN AND HAM HOCK SOUP WITH ARUGULA AND CORN BREAD CROUTONS

Steps:

• Make soup:
• Soak beans in cold water to cover overnight (8 hours). Drain and rinse well.
• Simmer ham hocks in 6 cups water in a 3-quart saucepan, partially covered, skimming foam as necessary, 1 hour. Reserve 4 cups cooking liquid and drain ham hocks.
• Heat bacon drippings in an 8-quart heavy pot over moderate heat until hot but not smoking, then cook onion and garlic, stirring, until softened. Add tomatoes and thyme and cook, stirring, 1 minute. Add soaked beans, broth, ham hocks, and reserved cooking liquid and simmer, covered, stirring occasionally, until beans are tender, about 1 hour.
• Make croutons while soup simmers:
• Preheat oven to 375°F.
• Melt butter with garlic and toss together with corn bread cubes in a shallow baking pan. Toast in middle of oven until lightly browned and crisp on the outside, about 15 minutes.
• Prepare soup for serving:
• Remove ham hocks and shred meat. Return meat to soup and stir in arugula. Simmer, uncovered, stirring occasionally, until greens are tender, 3 to 5 minutes. Season with salt, pepper, and Tabasco.
• Serve soup topped with croutons.

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.

HAM HOCK AND WHITE BEAN SOUP

Steps:

• Fill large pot with water and as it starts to boil, add dry beans and onion. Cook on medium-low till beans are soft, about 2 hrs., adding water as needed to keep beans covered.
• In another pan fill with water and add the ham and seasonings. Cook till meat falls off the bone.
• When beans are soft, remove the bones from the ham pot and add pot contents to the beans, including the water and the seasonings in the pan.
• Add the carrots and celery-cook on low till veggies are tender.
• Season with salt and pepper to taste. Add hot sauce at serving.

SMOKY WHITE BEANS & HAM

Steps:

• Rinse and sort beans; soak according to package directions., Drain and rinse beans, discarding liquid. Transfer beans to a 6-qt. slow cooker. Add ham hocks. Stir in onion, broth, water and seasonings. Cook, covered, on low 6-8 hours or until beans are tender., Remove meat from bones when cool enough to handle; cut ham into small pieces and return to slow cooker. Serve with a slotted spoon. Sprinkle with onions if desired.