Shaker Bean Soup

179. I have the perfect soup recipe for you on a chilly autumn day. This recipe was in an old "Taste of Home-Country Woman" magazine many years ago. If you know anything about ToH, they include pull out recipe cards for you to place in your recipe box. And that is where this jewel is...in my "favorites" file.

When you first read the ingredients, it is difficult to assimilate the tastes with the finished product. But trust me, you will be in awe as you take the first couple bites and the richness and full body flavor of this soup surprises you!

Fresh ingredients are always my first choice, but frozen or canned substitutes work just as well.

Shaker Bean Soup

Country Woman (Taste of Home) Jan/Feb 1992

Grand Prize Winning Recipe

1 pound dry great northern beans

water

1 meaty ham bone or 2 smoked ham hocks (don't use a ham bone from a ham baked with cloves or spices.)

1 large yellow onion, chopped

3 large stalks celery, diced

2 carrots, shredded

kosher salt

1/2 tsp pepper

1/2 tsp dried thyme or 1 Tablespoon fresh thyme leaves

1 can (28 oz) crushed tomatoes in puree, or 6 fresh tomatoes chopped and crushed

2 Tablespoons brown sugar

1 1/2 cups finely shredded fresh spinach leaves, or one frozen package of spinach, thawed

Sort and rinse beans. Place in a Dutch oven or soup kettle; cover with water and bring to boil. Boil for 2 minutes. Remove from the heat; let stand 1 hour. Drain beans and discard liquid. In the same kettle, place ham bone or hocks, 3 quarts of water and the beans. Bring to a full rolling boil; reduce heat and simmer, covered, 1 to 1 1/2 hours or until meat easily falls from the bone. Remove bones from broth and, when cool enough to handle, trim meat. Discard bones.

Add ham, onion, carrots, salt pepper and thyme. Simmer covered, 1 hour or until beans are tender.

Once beans are tender, continue with remaining ingredients.

Add tomatoes and brown sugar. Cook for 10 minutes. Just before serving, add spinach. This gives the soup a beautiful color with the bright green of the spinach.

The cook who shared this homemade recipe was Deborah, of Michigan.

You will be delighted to serve this delicious and beautiful, colorful soup. It is very hearty and filling. Perfect on a cold evening. And you will wait in line for seconds!

"Omit and substitute! That's how recipes should be written.

Please don't ever get so hung up on published recipes that you forget that you can omit and substitute."
~Jeff Smith (the Frugal Gourmet)

"Recipes are like poems; they keep what kept us.

And, good cooks are like poets; they know how to count."

~Henri Coulette