White Bean and Vegetable Cream Soup

I put "white bean soup" on our meal plan one week. (I put a lot of soup on our meal plan that week since I was in the clutches of the so called Polar Vortex when I drew it up. But it ended up being abnormally warm the rest of the week.) When I went to make dinner I didn't have a corresponding recipe so this kind of happened. I was  inspired by a recipe in Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian White Beans, Tuscan Style in which the beans are seasoned simply with garlic, sage, and black pepper. Mr. H liked it so I thought I'd share the recipe--it's like the ham and potato soup from September except without the ham and potatoes.

I wasn't planning to blog this so my photo is the
left over bit of soup that I ended up having for lunch.
So good, even left over.

White Bean and Vegetable Cream Soup

1 qt. vegetable broth (1qt water + vegetable better than bullion)
1 chopped onion
4 diced carrots
1 c. diced celery (one or two stalks)
1 c. frozen green peas
1 c. dried great northern beans, soaked and drained (or two cans drained beans)
1 t pepper
1 t sage

5 T butter or vegetable oil
5 T all purpose flour
2 c. milk

Combine the first group of ingredients in a stockpot. Bring to a boil. Then simmer for an hour or until beans are tender.

Melt butter or heat oil in a saucepan. Whisk in the flour and cook stirring constantly for two minutes. Slowly whisk in milk and cook for 5 minutes until thick. Stir the milk mixture into the the soup and mix thoroughly.

Note: In soups I like my veggies to be really mushy if you don't like that cook the beans by themselves first for 40 minutes and add the veggies for the remaining 20 minutes. Or use canned beans and just cook everything for 20 minutes. You can use any combination of vegetables you'd like I'd try to keep it to about 5 cups of diced vegetables. I'll likely try using olive oil (I used butter this time) and adding in some garlic next time. Also, I think spinach would be really good in this.

The White Beans, Tuscan Style from Bitmann's
How to Cook Everything Vegetarian
with fresh bread and diced sweet tomatoes

So Much Ham

Last week, ham was on sale at the grocery store for 88¢ a pound. We try to economize as my husband is a teacher and I am lawyer but I am working temporarily at a non-profit. So we bought the smallest one we could find and it weighed seven pounds.

It was so delicious but there was a lot left over (including the bone which is sitting in our freezer waiting to be made into stock). So far we've made two dinners out of the leftover ham and we still have at least one more dinner's worth of ham in the fridge.

The ham was great the first time around and both of the recipes were too delicious not to share! The soup was even better as a left over at lunch.

Broccoli and Ham Bake*

1lb bag frozen broccoli, defrosted (cuts work fine here but you can use florets)
2 c. cubed cooked ham
2 T butter or olive oil
2 T all purpose flour
1/2 t seasoning salt (can omit)
1/4 t pepper
1/4 t dry mustard
1 c. shredded cheddar cheese
1 c. milk†

Heat the oven to 350º and grease a casserole dish. Defrost the broccoli (if you prefer mushier vegetables do more than just defrost the broccoli and cooking it a little bit). Melt butter in pot (or heat up oil) and whisk in the flour. Add the salt, pepper, and mustard. Cook the flour for two minutes. Whisk in the milk, then stir in the cheese. After the cheese is well mixed in (after 2 or 3 minutes), add the defrosted broccoli and cubed ham. Mix and add to the greased casserole dish. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes.


* I believe this recipe came from the outside of a bag of broccoli because all I have is a index card with no source info and the ingredients say 1 pakgage of broccoli florets.

† FYI I always use skim milk in recipes even if the recipe just calls for milk since I drink skim milk and that's what we have on hand.



Ham and Potato Soup
(Original Recipe from allrecipes.com Here)

1 qt. broth (I used a quart of water and chicken better than bullion)
3 1/2 c. peeled and diced potatoes*
1 chopped onion
1 c. cubed cooked ham
1 c. frozen green peas
1/2 t. celery seed†
1 t pepper

5 T butter or olive oil
5 T all purpose flour
2 c. milk

Combine the first group of ingredients in a stockpot. Bring to a boil. Cook over medium heat until all the vegetables are tender. Melt butter or heat oil in a saucepan. Whisk in the flour and cook stirring contently for two minutes. Slowly whisk in milk and cook for 5 minutes until thick. Stir the milk mixture into the stockpot and mix thoroughly.

We were so hungry and this was so good that I did not get a picture of it. I cannot wait to make it again though. Next time I may play around with a different mix of vegetables because I love carrots in soup but we were out of carrots this week.


* My husband was in charge of dinner prep. He told me he just chopped lots things up and didn't pay close attention to the amounts so I am not sure if this recipe accurately reflects the quantity of chopped vegetables and ham used. I also just emptied the remainder of a bag of frozen peas into the stock pot. What can I say, cooking is an art.

† The original recipe calls for 1/3 cup of diced celery. I usually buy a bunch of celery dice it and freeze it to use as needed. We had no frozen celery and didn't pick up any when we did our weekly grocery store run so I looked on the internet and learned that you can substitute 1 cup of celery for 1 teaspoon of celery seed in recipes where all you really need is the celery flavor, like in this soup.