Last weekend, I made vegetable beef soup with some leftover beef roast, carrots, and potatoes. I intended to link up with Erin (Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs) Soup and A Story post on Saturday, but I didn’t seem to find time all day to sit down and write after visiting my parents for the day.
Then I forgot to finish the post this week, because Erin said I could add it whenever, but I am here for this Saturday at least.
When I have leftover beef, I always think of making veggie beef soup with it, maybe because I think that is what my mom always did.
I loved my mom’s veggie beef soup — much more than hamburger stew. Her hamburger stew was delicious, don’t get me wrong, but there was a texture to it because of the hamburger that always threw me off. I didn’t like the little bits of hamburger that broke off in the stew.
I can’t remember my mom making soups other than the hamburger stew and veggie soup when I was younger, but when I became an adult, she and my dad started to make ham and bean soup together and oh it was so good. They are older now with a lot of health issues, so they don’t make it very often anymore, but when they did, they had a tradition of sending containers over to the kids and me so we could have some too. In the same way they would send soup our way after they made it, I would send soup their way as well, if I made it.
(The Husband doesn’t really like soup unless it is in a can. Don’t ask. He’s weird like that.)
I remember Little Miss being very young and getting very excited when Grandpa and Grandma sent over soup.
Some children are excited by chicken nuggets or French Fries but my children scarfed down their grandparents’ soup like it was the best thing they ever tasted.
Our son would often say he’d have some soup later, but I always warned him to get it while he could because his sister was bound to eat it all and leave him with nothing. I always found it funny when three days after the soup was delivere,d he’d ask where it went.
As if that soup was going to stay around very long in this house! It was just too good!
My children love my parents’ ham and bean soup so much that one year they suggested we have it for Christmas dinner. I don’t remember if we did or not, but we might have had it for New Year’s instead.
I’ve always felt like I couldn’t compete with their soup, but over the years, mine has become pretty good so I’m not as intimidated anymore. Now that they can’t make it much, I have started trying to make it but I haven’t done much lately. I need to get around to make some as it is the perfect weather for it.
My parents also occasionally made chili and would send that over.
Soups that I have made in the past, besides vegetable beef soup, include sweet potato, ham and potato, chicken and rice, and chicken noodle.
I thought I’d share the recipe for my parents’ ham and bean soup today, as best as I can recall it.
First, you need to either get a whole ham (we like the Sugardale brand) or a ham hock and cook it down until the ham is crumbling or falling off the bone.
I use an Instant Pot to cook my ham. Cooking it in a pot on the stove or in a slow cooker works too. Keep some of the juice from the ham as well. Put that all in a pot with the butter beans.
My parents use Hanover brand butter beans, but you can use whatever brand you want. They use the ones already cooked because none of us seems to be able to cook them right.
It depends on how much soup you want to make, but they often use three 32-oz cans.
The cans usually come with salt already included so you don’t need to add more. They do add a little bit of garlic but otherwise they don’t put much seasoning. That can be added by the person eating it later.
From there, they also add onions and carrots. You cook the mixture until it becomes the consistency that works best for you and until the onions and carrots are tender, if you use fresh ones. If you want it to be more watered down, you can add some more water, but our family likes it a little bit thicke,r which comes when you cook the beans down so that the broth becomes thicker.
One trick my dad added over the years was adding turmeric, not for taste, but for color.
One time they added red peppers for color, and now we love it with the red peppers.
So your list of ingredients:
Ham or ham hock with ham on the bone still on it
64 to 96 oz of butter beans
Turmeric (just enough until it turns yellow)
1 to 2 two carrots sliced into medallions
1 sweet (Vidalia) onion (I don’t usually add onion)
1 to 2 sweet red peppers
You cook the soup until it looks and tastes like you want it so I can’t really give you a time frame. It does take at least one to two hours to cook the ham until it breaks apart enough to be added to the soup.
I cook the soup in the instapot so I add all of the ingredients at once, but I cook the ham or ham hock (you can also use a ham steak as long as it is tender).
I called Mom to double-check on this recipe before I shared it, and she said, “Do you have to make the soup for this post or just write about it?”
I took that as a hint that it is time for some ham and bean soup so that’s what I’ll be making this weekend and yes, I’ll be sending some to them.
What soups do you enjoy eating throughout the year, but especially in the winter?
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Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.
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