Ham and Bean Soup a.k.a Hot Ham Water

Hot Ham Water is a reference to one of my all-time favorite TV shows, Arrested Development. The show is not on anymore, if you haven't seen it, I strongly encourage renting or borrowing the DVD's from someone. The show is brilliantly written and hilarious. The characters are something else. Getting back to the reference, the character Lindsey makes soup and calls it "hot ham water".

Ham and Bean Soup is a great way to use some of the Easter ham leftovers. My mom would make it using the ham bone and chunks of ham. While time consuming, the soup is easy to make. My mom mentioned that she was freezing the ham bone and making the soup the following week. That is an option. I chose to make the soup right away.

As one can guess, the foray into becoming a vegetarian (for health and some ethical reasons) is not going well. I still haven't had meat from cows in months. The reason we had ham for Easter is because the husband really likes it.

1 cup dry navy beans
4 cups water
1-1.5 pound meaty ham bone
1.5 cups sliced celery
1 cup chopped onion
3/4 cup dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 bay leaf

1. Soak beans overnight in a covered pan.
2. Drain and rinse beans. In the same pan combine beans, 4 cups fresh water, pork celery, onion, thyme, salt, pepper, and bay leaf. Bring to a boil, reduce heat. Cover and simmer about 1 hour or until beans are tender.
3. Remove ham bone, when cool enough to handle, cut meat off bone and coarsely chop. Discard bone and bay leaf. Slightly mash beans in saucepan. Return meat to sauce pan.
4. Heat through. If this is using leftovers, feel free to add extra meat.
   

Makes 4 main-dish servings.