Terrific Black Bean & Ham Soup

I cannot believe my kids eat this. I mean— it’s good! But when I was a kid, I hated anything with beans in it. My kids devour this soup. It’s so easy to make, and it’s perfect with my Bread Machine Flax Bread. The ingredients are simple; you probably have everything in your pantry. I serve a big crowd, so this recipe is a little large. Reduce (or double) as you wish.

Wow Chow Black Bean & Ham Soup

4 15oz. cans black beans
2 15oz. cans chicken broth (or use your own)
2 Tablespoons minced garlic, chopped fresh or prepared in the jar (optional)
1 Tablespoon horseradish (optional)
1 Tablespoon olive oil or pat of butter
1 white onion, diced into small pieces
6 cups of diced ham or turkey ham

In a large stock pot, put in the olive oil or butter, and then the onions. Saute lightly, just until the onion is barely translucent. Toss in all your ham or turkey ham (I use turkey ham), and stir well to heat.

Now, drain your canned beans and dump them in the pot. Dump the broth into the pot. Add the garlic and horseradish if you include them.

Stir it well, and cook on low/medium for about 3 hours. I guess it would be technically cooked in 1 or 2 hours, but cooking longer thickens the soup and blends the ingredients more. This is a GREAT cold weather meal. It’s also a terrific “quickie” meal, for days when you’re too busy fooling around, doing housework and bills, blogging, making vacation plans and checking out www.goodsamesp.com, etc etc. Heh heh. It takes about 20 minutes to have everything ready to throw in the pot. The key is stirring it every once in a while. to make sure the beans don’t stick as the soup thickens. Alternatively, if you will be out of the house all day, you can throw these same ingredients into the crockpot and cook on low for 8 hours. The Flax Seed Bread is perfect with this!

Four Foods For Friday 100

Well, Friday has come and gone! But as is my motto, “Better late than never.” :-p

Here are this week’s questions:

1. What did you eat yesterday? (Christmas for some of you.)
2. Do you have any food traditions for Christmas?
3. What’s your favorite holiday leftover?
4. What food do you always wish you had more of after the holidays?

1. Because I’m so late with FFFF, Christmas is gone now. Um… what did I eat yesterday?? Uhh *think think*
Coffee for breakfast.
A soft pretzel for lunch. (I was out of the house and picked up a quick snack).
For snack: a few almonds and cashews (about half a handful).
More coffee.
For dinner: a spinach and greens salad with red pepper, mushrooms, carrots; a hamburger with red onion slices; half a glass of milk; three shrimp in spicy cocktail sauce.
For dessert: more coffee, sweetened with sucanat (yum!).

2. Yeah: gorge and then pop the adipex diet pills!! HAHA! No, really. We don’t celebrate Christmas– we celebrate Thanksgiving Day and make that our big day; but I do cook a nice meal for Christmas, because everyone has the day off and I have plenty of helpers around, heh heh. My only tradition is turkey. I love turkey so I make a big one. And I try to make a pie or two.

3. Turkey. I just love it. I love it with leftover stuffing. Mmmmm.

4. Turkey. And leftover stuffing. It just never gets boring to me!!

Well, this was another fun one. Maybe I’ll actually have the next one done on time, for a change!

FFFF 99: Bottom’s Up!

As is becoming my tradition, I missed the Four Foods for Friday on Friday. I had good thoughts about it Saturday, but didn’t get to it…. so I’m FINALLY doing it.

1. How do drink your hot chocolate? Marshmallows? From boxed or scratch?
2. Do you prefer cider hot or cold?
3. Do you like egg nog?
4. How do you make punch?

I have a bad head cold (AGAIN! gah!) so I can only hope that my answers are coherent. Here goes…

1. I’m not a hot chocolate drinker… I sometimes add a spoonful into my coffee when I make it for the kids. I use the powdered stuff. Disgusting, I know. My mom used to make her own powdered stuff, and that was even more disgusting.

2. Don’t like cider, either! I’ll sip it, I guess. I’ve only had it hot once in my life. Eh. Give me coffee and water, and I’m a happy camper. I do like the occasional orange juice.

3. I used to CRAVE it when a kid. LOVED it. Now… boy, I have become such a fuddy-dud when it comes to drinking, haven’t I? My hubs recently bought a half gallon of egg nog, and it’s still in the fridge, barely touched.

4. Umm…. add three cups of cold water to the frozen concentrate…. *blush*

I’m not a drink connessieur conesseir connoisseur. Obviously.

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