Bean Soup for Recipe Friday

For Thanksgiving dinner this year we had a spiral honey ham. It was almost a 6 lb ham, and there are only three of us (okay, the dog did get a little, too), so we had lots of leftovers. After having eaten just ham and stuffing reheated for lunch two days in a row I wanted something different. So I decided to make bean soup. I knew I had the beans in the house, and so I decided to wing it. The resulting recipe was easy and delicious. I served it with refrigerator biscuits. Sorry I forgot to take pictures.

My son’s best friend was over and we offered him some, but he doesn’t like beans. His loss!

Super Easy Bean Soup

Ingredients:

½ sweet onion
2 stalks celery
1 orange pepper
2 tbsp butter
1 12-oz can V-8 Juice
1 can ready cut tomatoes
2 cans white beans
1 can white kidney beans
1 to 2 cups ham cubes
Pepper
½ tsp garlic salt
1 tsp marjoram
1 tsp thyme

Directions:

Finely chop onion, celery, and pepper. In a 4 quart pot, sauté chopped veggies until tender. Add V-8 Juice. Rinse one can of white beans and add to the pot. Using a potato masher, partially smash the beans. Add tomatoes, remaining cans of beans (rinsed), ham, and herbs and spices. Add 2-3 cups of water. Simmer for 20 minutes.

Note on beans: You can use 3 cans of white beans instead of the kidney beans, but I happened to have on can of white kidney beans and I thought the different sized beans would be fun.

Note on ham: The amount of ham really depends on what you have leftover, or how meaty you want your soup.

Note on garlic salt: Be careful with the garlic salt. Since ham is pretty salty, too much added salt will make the soup too salty.