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)

Gumbo with Andouille and Stewing Hen

Ingredients:

• 1 Stewing Hen (aka Soup Chicken) or 1 package Necks & Backs or leftover chicken carcass
• Salt, pepper and cayenne pepper to taste.
• 1/2 to 1 pound Andouille sausage, chopped
• 2 cups okra
• 1 bell pepper, chopped
• 3 pods garlic, chopped
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 3 bay leaves
• 1 tsp basil
• 2 tsp thyme
• 2 tomatoes, fresh or canned
• 3 Tbsp fat or oil
• 3 Tbsp flour
• 1 cup stock
• Shrimp, oysters, crab (optional)

Cook chicken in water with salt, pepper and cayenne pepper until tender. Remove meat from bone in slivers. Save stock. Leftover turkey, ham or duck carcass also works instead of chicken. In a large pot, saute sausage. Remove sausage from pot and saute okra, bell pepper, garlic, onion, bay leaves, basil and thyme in sausage drippings. Stir frequently to prevent burning or sticking. When tender, add tomatoes that have been pureed in blender or finely chopped. Let this simmer 15 minutes, stirring frequently. Add chicken and stock. Let gumbo mixture simmer.

Make the roux in a separate (cast iron if possible) pan. Heat fat or oil over medium heat until it is just about to smoke. Add flour, stirring constantly . It should take 3 to 5 minutes to turn dark brown. Take care not to burn. When the roux is done, remove from heat an let cool for 15 minutes. Slowly add 1 cup on hot stock., stirring so it won't lump. Add this to the gumbo.

The optional shrimp, crab and oysters can also be added at this point if desired.

Season to taste with salt and cayenne pepper. Simmer 2 to 3 hours. Serve over rice. If the okra is not used, sprinkle 1 tsp of file in each bowl after the gumbo has been served.

Serves 12.

Adapted from the River Road Recipes II cookbook.