Ham Bone Soup

This Hanukkah, to my great delight, I received the gift of a Honey Baked Ham. Yum. (Pork is no stranger to my kitchen.) As a bonus, this also marked my first opportunity to cook with a ham bone. With no dinner planned, I stopped at the market on the way home from work and picked up some beans for what would be my ham and bean soup.

Since I'm terrible at making decisions, I chose the very non-committal 15 bean variety blend. I had finely chopped onion in my refrigerator, and I didn't feel like buying more veggies. Therefore I was keeping it simple. Into the pot went 3/4 cup finely chopped onion, about 3 cups of water, 1.5 cups of mixed dried beans, and liberal unmeasured amounts of dried garlic, black pepper, thyme, onion powder, about 1tbsp Cholula hot sauce, the ham bone, some additional ham. This cooked on medium.

After twentyish minutes I took a taste, and there was nothing good about it. To add to its "appeal," it was looking pretty grey. I added more ham, carrots and a frozen brick of chopped spinach.

Another twentyish minutes of simmering and I took another taste. This time it was yum, and it looked much better too. The carrots were very soft so I turned the burner off and let the pot sit on the hot spot for a little further melding of the flavors.


Everyone liked it and the house smelled great. Here's lunch and dinner for the next few days. Enjoy!