Monday's Meal

My family really likes bean soup. I have an old family recipe that is delicious, but it only calls for Great Northern beans - and I've been wanting to mix it up a bit. I tried a package of the Hurst 15-bean soup, but even after soaking the beans for 30 hours and cooking for 6 hours, some of the beans were still hard in the center - plus the seasoning mix has a lot of smoke flavor, which is not a favorite of mine (or my family).

So I decided to just work with canned beans (no hard centers, LOL!) and the basic "soup" part of the family recipe (with a few minor changes). Here's the result:

Bean Soup

1 can chicken broth

1 pkg. Lipton Beefy Onion soup

1/2 6 oz. can tomato paste

1 can Bush's black beans (drained)

1 can Bush's pinto beans (undrained)

1 can Bush's light kidney beans (undrained)

1 can Bush's cannellini beans (undrained)

1 can Bush's Great Northern beans (undrained)

2 8 oz. pkgs. diced ham

Simmer on stovetop for 2 hours. If you like a "soupier" soup, you can add a cup or two of water or broth (just be careful if you choose broth - the Lipton beefy onion packet adds a lot of saltiness to the soup, so additional broth might make it too salty for your taste).

Notes:
1) Next time I plan to add lentils and garbanzo beans and maybe butter beans.
2) You don't have to drain the black beans, but if you don't, the broth will be almost black. :-)
3) Hawaiian sweet bread goes really well with salty bean soup.