Snow Storm Bean Soup

I've been cooking this morning and despite the snow storm that's going on outside, I'm really feeling warm. I even opened up a couple of windows. The thermostat only says 69 degrees, but it feels like it's 80 degrees. However, I've been dumping a lot of humidity in the air cooking the bean soup. I'm not a huge fan of bean soup, but it's nice to have once in a while, and it's good to have on hand for a quick meal. I don't like bland navy bean bean soup. I like those bags of 15 varieties of beans. It's so much more colorful and interesting. And I am a bean soaker. I know it's not necessarily the thing to do these days, but the beans cook up better if you do it, especially when you are using a variety of beans that don't necessarily cook up evenly.

I also don't use chopped ham. I like to use a ham shank or a ham hock. They are less processed, and cooking the bone makes the soup heartier and healthier. And really, it's not that hard to fish it out of the soup after it's cooked a while and then cut the meat off the bone.

By the way, I vaguely remember buying that Lucite cutting board pictured here, but it's turned out to be a real wonder. It's got a little trench around it to catch juices. I've been able to cut up whole turkeys on that thing with little to no mess. And watermelon is really easy with this cutting board. I really lucked out when I stumbled across it.

Aside from water the only other ingredients I've included are chopped onions, carrots and celery.

The celery looks funky because it had been in the freezer. The ham is salty enough that no additional seasoning is necessary. Each individual can add additional salt and pepper to taste. I cooked this for hours although I don't think it needs to be cooked all that long. It's really hard to screw up a recipe like this.