What's Small, Delicious And Comes In Many Shapes? (with Bean Soup recipe)

...Beans!

Today is Bean Day! (It is also Cuddle Day, although I'm not sure these oddball holidays belong together.)

We enjoy beans in our white chicken chili, regular chili, burritos, baked beans, and of course in soup. During Thanksgiving and Christmas, a lot of families serve a spiral ham. I always save my ham bone. When we're done carving the ham, I wrap in the bone in plastic wrap and then in aluminum foil. I place in the bone in the freezer for later since it makes a great flavoring for soups! Don't worry about cleaning off the bone, the extra pieces of ham will add lots of extra flavor and filling to the soup.

Here is my super easy BEAN SOUP RECIPE:

You will need:

• Ham bone
• 3-4 cans of beans. For our family, I usually use 3 cans. I generally use a can of black beans, great northern beans, butter beans. Light red kidney beans add a nice flavor as well.
• 1 (32 oz.) container chicken broth or beef stock (I like to use the reduced sodium versions.)*
• 1-2  cups of water

Directions:

1. Open, rinse, and drain beans.

2. Place beans, ham bone, and broth/stock in a large pot. 

3. Simmer over medium to medium-high heat until beans are cooked and any left over pieces of ham are falling off the bone. I usually simmer my soup for about 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Add water as needed.

4. Remove bone from pot and serve!

These go great with corn muffins!

What's your favorite way to eat beans? What's your favorite recipe?

*You can also use Beef bullion cube (or beef stock), but the bullion cubes do tend to make it a lot saltier.

LINKS:
Bean Day