Thursday Thinking Ahead--Southern Style Navy Bean Soup

I received a huge ham from my boss for Christmas. If I had started this blog back in December there would have been a million recipes using ham. I can't even remember what all I cooked now, except for a wonderful ham and mushroom lasagna, a mushroom quiche, and ham with red eye gravy. That ham fed us for a month. When digging through the freezer this week I remembered that, thinking ahead, I had saved the ham bone--and a nice meaty ham bone it was, too. It came in handy this week for making a big old pot of beans.

The sweetness of the ham and the the smokiness of the sausage made a wonderful combination.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups navy beans
• 4 quarts water
• 1 large meaty ham bone (or 1 LB ham hocks)
• 1 onion chopped
• 2 large ribs of celery diced
• 2 large carrots diced
• 1 TB salt
• 1/4 tsp pepper
• 10 oz chopped turnip greens
• 3/4 LB sausage (I used a slightly spicy, hickory smoked sausage)

Directions:

• Wash beans.
• Either soak overnight or quick soak by bringing to a boil, boil for 3 minutes, and then covering and letting sit for an hour.
• Add ham bone, onion, celery, carrot, salt and pepper to beans.
• Cover and simmer for at least an hour and a half (I let mine simmer all afternoon).
• Half an hour or so before serving add turnip greens and whole sausage.
• Right before serving removed sausage and ham bone from soup.
• Chop the ham and slice the sausage.
• Toss the bone and return the meat to the pot to heat for a couple of minutes and the serve.

I served mine with jalapeno vinegar on the side and Hominy Spoon Bread.

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