16 Bean Ham Soup

Most of the Christmas presents I received were cooking tools. Doesn't my family know me well? Mom gave Casey and I a set of Emeril's cookware, my mother-in-law gave me a pressure cooker, my brothers and sisters in-law gave me spices and other kitchen tools. Excellent. I've used them all already. Casey especially liked the new spices in the Walnut Spiced Granola I made, based on this recipe, but with good cinnamon, cloves, allspice and vanilla added.

Of course, I had to re-organize the kitchen and triage to make room, and I made the happy discovery of a Cuisinart food processor with attachments. I think it came from Casey's grandmother, but we had been using an older one that Casey got from a garage sale. Anyway, using the slicing attachment is amazing. It make me feel like Ina on TV, and I made beautiful potato-chip thin potatoes and roasted them with olive oil and Nature's seasoning. We like crispy potatoes around here. But I made be inspired to do a gratin or pommes anna. Anyone want to come over for dinner?

In the meantime, I used my pressure cooker to whip up a flavorful soup recipe in 30 minutes. Cheap too, considering the main ingredient is a $2 bag of beans.

16 Bean Ham Soup1 pkg of dried 16 bean soup mix, with seasoning pkt
2 cans stewed tomatoes (or one large can)
1 smoked ham hock
1 small lean ham, diced
2 cans seasoned collard greens

Soak dried beans overnight. Drain, and put in pressure cooker. Cover with water with 1 inch or 2 over the beans. Add seasoning packet that came with the soup, stewed tomatoes with their juice, ham hock and diced ham. Mix and lock pressure cooker cover. Heat on high until the safety lock comes up, reduce to medium and cook for 25 minutes, adjusting heat down so that the release valve rocks gently. Afterward, cool pan to open safely, remove ham hock and mix in collard greens with their juice. Serves 6-8. Cornbread would be a great accompaniment.