Ham and Black Bean Soup

I always make a ham on Easter and I always give the bone to someone so they can make bean or split pea soup. I'm not a fan of either. This year, no one wanted the bone and I didn't want to throw it away, so I went looking around the internet and found something that sounded interesting.

The recipe called for dry black beans, I've never made beans dry from the bag so this was a whole new experience for me. What I found out...I apparently bought "old" beans because they didn't soften in the cooking time that was recommended. But, I didn't give up and just cooked it longer and it worked. I shared with friends and everyone LOVED this soup so I'll be making it again.

What you'll need:

6 quart slow cooker

16 oz dry Black Beans
6 C water ~ recipe said to cover ingredients and that's what fit in my crock
Ham bone ~ my ham was a 7 lb ham and there was still quite a bit of meat on it
1 Red Bell Pepper~chopped
1 Green Bell Pepper~chopped
1 Jalapeno Pepper~minced..I left in half the seeds for heat
1 Anaheim Pepper~minced ~ I left in all the seeds
2 Chipolte Peppers~minced I bought a can and used 2
1 Red Onion~chopped
2 cans Diced Tomatoes with Green Chilis
1 t Chili Powder
6 cloves Garlic~minced
1 t Kosher Salt
1/4 t Pepper

The night before, put the beans in a pot with 8 cups water. Remove any beans that float and any that don't look right. Allow to soak overnight. Drain

Place the ham bone in the crockpot. Add the beans and everything else on top except salt and pepper. Cover with water and cook on low for 10 hours.

Because my beans weren't soft at that point, I put the soup in the fridge and cooked again the next day for another 6 and that was the ticket. This actually turned out to be an added bonus because when I took the soup out of the fridge, I was able to skim the fat from the top easily because it had chilled.

Remove the ham bone, shred the ham that fell off the bone, nothing was left on my ham bone after that long.

I also want to explain the difference between chop and mince. Chop means a small size that you can bite, mince means small enough that you can barely detect it. When recipes call for mince, I use my mini food processor and give it a whirl.
Ham Bone
Chopped green and red
Anaheim pepper is the larger of the two
Can of Chipotle Peppers I bought
Ready to crock

Yum!