16 Bean Soup

Description

Beans are an excellent source of soluble fibre, and they also taste great! For an easy, budget friendly soup, just start with the dried beans and add a few other simple ingredients. Let it "brew," and you'll have a wonderful meal.

Serves: 8

Cooking Time: 6 min

Ingredients

• 1 pound 16-bean mixture

• 2 quart water

• 1 large onion, chopped

• 1 clove garlic, minced

• 3/4 teaspoon salt

• 1 16-ounce can diced tomatoes, undrained

• 1 10-ounce can diced tomatoes and green chillies, undrained

• 1 pound ham hocks or smoked meat

Instructions

STOVETOP

1. Sort and wash beans and place in pot.

2. Cover with water 2 inches above the beans and soak overnight.

3. Drain beans; add 2 quarts water and the onion and garlic.

4. Cover and bring to a boil; reduce heat and simmer 1 1/2 hours or until beans are tender.

5. Add ham hocks, salt and tomatoes and simmer 30 minutes.

CROCK-POT

I have done this two ways:

1. I have put everything into the crockpot and cooked it on high all day and the beans cooked and were not hard.

2. I have also just put the beans, water, onion and garlic and cooked that for about 4 hours on low then added the salt, ham, tomatoes and cooked that another few hours.

Notes

In the package of beans there is a nasty "ham flavouring" packet that I just throw out. I use the smoked ham hocks or anything that is cheap and then I throw that meat out because it is usually tasteless by then. I just use it for the flavour.