Ham & Bean Soup with Vegetables

Use the bone from your leftover ham or use smoked hocks to make this awesome soup.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup dry navy beans
• 1 to 1.5 lbs meaty smoked pork hocks or 1 to 1.5 lb meaty ham bone
• 1 Tablespoon butter or fat from your ham
• 1.5 cups sliced celery (about 3 stalks)
• 1.5 cups chopped onion
• 1/4 teaspoon crushed dried thyme
• 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 Tablespoon vinegar (helps get mineral out of the bones)
• 2 cups sliced carrots (about 4 medium carrots)
• 2 cups sliced parsnips or chopped pealed rutabaga

Instructions

1. Rinse beans. In a 4 qt Dutch oven combine beans and 4 cups water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 2 minutes. Remove from heat, cover and let stand for one hour. (Or place beans in water in the Dutch oven. Cover and soak for in a cool place for 6 to 8 hours or overnight). Drain and rinse beans and set aside.
2. In the same Dutch oven brown ham bone or pork hocks in hot butter or pork fat over medium heat. Add the celery and onion. Cook and stir until softened. Stir in beans, thyme, salt, pepper, bay leaf, four cups fresh water and vinegar. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer covered for 1 to 1.5 hours or until beans are tender. Remove pork hocks or ham bone and let cool until it can be handled. Cut the meat off of the bones and coarsely chop the meat. Discard the bones and bay leaf. Slightly mash the beans if desired.
3. Stir in carrots and parsnips or rutabaga and return to a boil. Simmer covered for 15 minutes more or until vegetables are tender. Stir in chopped meat. Season to taste with additional salt and pepper if desired.

Adapted from Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book, 12th Edition

Medium Spicy Chicken Soup

Ingredients:

• Stewing (soup) chicken or pack of necks & backs or leftover chicken (or turkey) frame(s)
• 2 to 2.5 gal water
• 6 carrots, diced
• 3 onions, diced
• 8 to 10 cloves garlic, sliced or minced
• 8 celery stalks (1/4 slices)
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 tsp ground black pepper
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 large sweet red pepper, diced
• 8-oz jar of pickled mild pepperoncinis (sliced) with juice OR 8-oz jar of salsa
• 3 cups cooked brown or white rice (You can also experiment with barley, potatoes, wild rice or noodles to build up the soup. If using noodles, cook them separately and do not add to the main soup pot or they will eventually disintegrate. Instead add them to each individual bowl of soup as it is served.)

Simmer chicken with carrots, onions, celery, garlic, bay leaf, salt and pepper in 2 gal on water in a large soup pot for 2 to 2.5 hrs, until the breast is tender when poked with a fork. Remove chicken pieces and set aside to cool.

When the chicken is cooled, remove the meat from the bones, cut into bite-sized pieces and return to the pot. (if you are using an old laying hen (stewing hen or soup chicken), include the breast meat in the soup, but if you use a broiler, the cooked breast can be used for making chicken salad).

Add the sweet pepper, tomatoes, pepperoncini or salsa, cauliflower and cooked rice to the pot of broth and meat.

Simmer on med-low heat for 1 hour. Can be served with chicken salad sandwiches.

Cool the leftover soup and then freeze in covered plastic containers for quick, delicious future meals.

Adapted from the summer 2010 issue of Chickens Magazine (from Hobby Farms)

Leftover Chicken Pot Pie

Hopefully you have been roasting some of the whole chicken that have been included in your CSA shares. This is a great recipe to use on the leftover chicken.

Ingredients:

• Home made or purchased pastry fro a double-crust pie
• 10 oz (approx) fresh or frozen peas and carrots (experimentation is encouraged)
• 1/3 cup pastured butter
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup chopped onion
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 1-3/4 cups chicken broth
• 2/3 cup milk
• 2-1/2 to 3 cups cut-up left over chicken or turkey (if you have children, having them cut or tear up the leftover chicken is a great opportunity to get them involved in the kitchen)

1. Rinse veggies in cold water & drain.
2. Melt butter in a 2 qt saucepan over medium heat. Stir in flour, onion, salt, pepper. Cook, stirring constantly, until mixture is bubbly; remove from heat. Stir in broth and milk. Heat to boiling, stirring constantly. Boil and stir for one minute. Stir in chicken and peas and carrots; remove from heat.
3. Pre-heat oven to 425 degF
4. Prepare pastry. Roll two-thirds of the pastry into 13" square. Ease into ungreased square pan, 9x9x2 inches. Pour chicken mixture into pastry lined pan.
5. Roll remaining pastry into 11"square. Cutout designs with 2" cookie cutter. Place square over chicken mixture. Arrange cutouts onto pastry. Turn edges of pastry under and flute the edges.
6. Bake about 35 minutes or until golden brown.